Deadly Moon
by Kimberly T
Summary: The clan returns to New York to deal with an emergency; there's been a kidnapping! The clan wages war on their enemies to get their people back, not knowing who's really behind it all. Featuring Thailog, and another old foe of the clan... 48th in series.
1. Worst Fears

_**LIFE GOES ON**_

_**Meanwhile, Back in New York… Part 10**_**: **

**DEADLY MOON**

By Kimberly T. (email: kimbertow AT yahoo etc)

**10.1: Worst Fears**

_**Three days ago**_:

Kyle Norton, supervisor of mechanics in Xanatos Enterprises' motor pool staff for the Aerie Building, frowned as he filled in the paperwork in front of him. Blasted paperwork, always filling out forms; if it weren't for the fat pay increase he'd gotten when he'd been promoted, he'd happily toss all the paperwork onto someone else's desk and go back to turning wrenches, work that was a helluva lot more satisfying.

The unfamiliarity of this particular form made it more difficult to fill out, too. He filled out vehicle maintenance logs, work orders, purchase orders, gas chits and suchlike all the time, and he'd been supervisor long enough to have done a few rounds of those godforsaken Personnel Evaluation reports on his people, too. But he'd never had to fill out one of these forms, before; a Report of Unexplained Absence (Over 24 Hours).

Kyle's irritation over filling out the form, frequently checking his notes and the personnel record in front of him to be sure he got everything right, mingled with his growing sense of unease and frustration over the whole affair. He just knew in his gut that something very bad had happened to Frank and his son… and all he could do about it was make a couple phone calls and fill out a goddamned form.

Franklin Evinrude Lewis had been a mechanic on staff for over three years now, and during that time he'd kept a spotless record. Worked hard, made very few mistakes, good attitude; Employee of the Month for the motor pool twice in the last two years. Frank was currently one of only two people on the staff qualified to do the diagnostics and maintenance on the computer chips that were wired into nearly every part of the company cars and the Xanatos family's personal limousines; getting those qualifications had earned him a sizeable raise last year. Guys like Frank didn't just decide not to show up for work one day.

And there was more than just Frank to worry about, Kyle knew; there was his little boy, too. Frank was a single father, had been since his wife had died of cancer when their son was only six months old—Kyle had heard that she'd refused the chemo treatments when she'd found out she was pregnant, and by the time she'd given birth she was too far gone for chemo to save her. Since then Frank had been raising his boy on his own, and doing a good job of it so far as Kyle could tell, on the few occasions when Frank had brought little Nicholas David Lewis in to work.

Little Nicky was cute as a button, and a sort-of mascot for the motor pool; for his fifth birthday, some of the guys on staff had chipped in to get him a set of junior-sized set of mechanic's coveralls and a Fisher-Price tool kit. Wearing the coveralls and waving a plastic crescent wrench, with a big happy grin that was only accentuated by the birthmark on his left cheek, Nicky's picture hung on the wall in the break room next to the mug-hook for Frank's coffee cup… a cup that hadn't been used since last Thursday.

Friday morning, Frank hadn't showed up for work. He hadn't called in, either, which had bothered Kyle right from the start. With winter weather came the cold-n-flu season, and just about everyone in the motor pool had taken a day or two off already, but everyone also knew to call in and let the boss know when they were sick in bed or stuck at home taking care of sick kids. About an hour after he should have arrived, Kyle had called and left a message on Frank's answering machine, urging him to call in sick at least some time before quitting time, so Kyle could fix the daily attendance report. But Frank had never called back. And now, at nearly noon on a Monday, he still hadn't shown up. Something was _very_ wrong…

Stupid tight-arsed school district officials. Kyle knew which school little Nicky went to for kindergarten, and he'd called there to find out if Nicky was at school or had been there Friday; if Nicky was at school like always, then whatever was wrong with Frank wasn't too serious. Even if he was too sick for work, Frank would drag himself out of bed to take Nicky to school. But since Kyle wasn't a relative, the school district wouldn't even give him a 'yes' or 'no' as to whether Nicky had missed school!

Well, the school officials could damn well talk to the cops, then. After being stonewalled by them, Kyle had called the local police precinct to file a Missing Persons report on Frank E. Lewis, and given them little Nicky's name for good measure. The cop on the other end of the line had started listening more attentively once Kyle had stressed the fact that Frank was a single father.

That had been half an hour ago, and since then Kyle had been busy filling out this stupid form that the uman Human Resources guy had told him to fill out, when he'd called HR and let them know what was up. Goddamn cover-your-ass forms; he'd rather wipe his ass with them. But _nooo_, gotta fill out all these papers instead of just driving to Frank's place and pounding on the door like he wanted to do. Who the hell had dreamed up this form, anyway? All the blocks and lines he had to fill in… Kyle could sorta understand wanting to know how many years a missing person had been with the company and what his salary was, but what the fuck did it matter how many _vacation days_ a guy still had on the books when he was _**missing**_?!

The phone on his desk rang, and he picked it up, noting that the call was from an outside line. "Xanatos Enterprises, Motor Pool, Kyle Norton speaking."

"Mr. Norton? This is Officer Dubuque, Twenty-Third Precinct; we spoke on the phone earlier. When did you say your employee Franklin Lewis went missing?"

"He didn't show up for work on Friday, so it could have been any time after 6 p.m. on Thursday. Why; did you find out something?"

The police officer on the other end of the line hesitated, then said, "I called the school that you said his son went to. And they informed me that Nicholas D. Lewis hasn't been at school since the Friday before last."

"What the fuck?! Ah, sorry, officer. Did they say why?"

"The school official I spoke to said that they called the father last Monday, and he'd told them that his son was home sick."

"Bullshit! Ah, sorry again, officer. But if little Nicky had been home sick, Frank would have been at home all last week taking care of him; he still had four sick days left on the books." Something Kyle had looked up for writing down on that damn form just a few minutes ago.

"I thought so. Mr. Norton, I'm having a patrol car sent over to Mr. Lewis's apartment, and in the meantime, I'm starting another Missing Persons report for Nicholas Lewis. What can you tell me about the boy? His height, appearance, any known medical conditions…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_**Two nights ago**_:

"_Danke_—thank you," Heinrich said as he accepted a mug of tea and sipped it.

Father John Sullivan nodded in answer and seated himself in the armchair opposite from Heinrich's chair, before asking, "So, what are your plans for tonight?"

Heinrich looked grimly determined. "Same as before; I try again to find the Labyrinth. To prove myself worthy of the gargoyles down there."

A task that Heinrich had been trying to accomplish for the past three nights, and without any assistance from anyone else; not even the flashlight that the priest had offered him.

Father Sullivan was still tempted to go visit the Labyrinth himself, during the afternoon when Talon would be awake but the gargoyles would not be yet, and confront the Labyrinth leader over being so callous and cold-hearted in his demands. Telling Malibu that if Heinrich couldn't come down to the Labyrinth, then the two gargoyles couldn't be friends or even see each other anymore! After Heinrich had tried his best, going over a hundred yards through the dark tunnels leading from Central Park before his phobia had overcome him…

From what Heinrich had told the priest over the last few evenings of conversation, there was a legitimate reason for his deep-seated fear of dark enclosed places; as a hatchling, he and his brother and sister had been literally _buried alive_ in the bombing of Dresden during WWII. Childhood traumas that severe were not easy to overcome, but Heinrich had been trying his best for the last few nights. Each night he glided from his sanctuary in the church to the Central Park tunnel entrance, and tried once more to find his way in the dark tunnels, along the path that Malibu had been leading him before that first panic attack had sent him screaming back out to the park.

On the first night of his solo attempt to find the Labyrinth, following faint talon-prints in the dust and faint traces of Malibu's scent, Heinrich had gone in and down almost as far as he had with Malibu to guide him. Almost that far by himself, before his shaking hands and the sounds of his own whimpers echoing off the walls had persuaded him that he'd gone far enough for the first try, and he'd shamefully scurried back along his own scent-trail. And each night since he had gone and further and further, alone in the Stygian darkness, fighting his fears and searching…

Searching for a home that was actually quite far from Central Park and almost impossible to find without a guide, as Father Sullivan knew well. If it weren't for the fact that gargoyles had such a keen sense of smell, and Heinrich's ability to follow his own trail back to the surface each time, the priest would have done his best to dissuade Heinrich from going at all, and getting horribly lost far below the city streets. He would have told the gargoyle to just wait until after Christmas, when the priest actually had time to visit the Labyrinth himself.

Johnny Sullivan had always loved Christmas, but after he became a Catholic priest, it had become the busiest time of the year for him. After adding to his usual schedule of masses, Bible classes and home or hospital visits to the elderly & infirm, all the Nativity play rehearsals, fundraising choral concerts, and putting together of food baskets and such for the impoverished members of his parish, the priest had scarcely an hour to himself since the start of Advent! Traveling on foot down to the Labyrinth always took at least four hours out of his schedule, time that he simply did not have right now.

After Christmas, he silently resolved once more. If Heinrich hadn't found the Labyrinth and gained acceptance by then, on the afternoon of the 26th of December, he would personally march down to the Labyrinth and confront Talon. He would explain to the man that Heinrich was trying his very best to be a brave gargoyle worthy of joining the clones down there, and that it was well past time that Talon put aside whatever cultural mores had prevented him from telling Malibu to simply take a flashlight and guide Heinrich along one of the much shorter routes, found elsewhere in the city.

And if Talon still refused, then the priest would take it upon himself to guide Heinrich down to the Labyrinth that very evening, and do whatever was necessary to get the gargoyle accepted! Any culture that made no allowances for a man—or gargoyle—who was under a handicap but trying his hardest to follow their strictures, was a culture in need of some gentle modifications. Father Sullivan had never been a missionary, bringing both helping hands and the Word of God to distant lands and cultures, but for the sake of Heinrich and his family in Germany, he was more than willing to give it a try.

But Christmas was still a few days away; a few very busy days indeed. So Father Sullivan yawned as he saw Heinrich to the door, ensured the gargoyle had the keys for letting himself back in later, then wished him a good night and successful venture before tottering off to bed.

_**Last night**_**:**

Holding the payphone receiver to her ear, Elisa smiled as she heard her husband Goliath vow that if the trip to Avalon took more than three nights—which would be a full seventy-two days and nights' worth of time in the real world—he would leave the youngsters on the island to do their courting and just _**swim**_ back to be with her.

The mental image of Goliath doing the backstroke all the way back to Manhattan was amusing, but she still said, "No, you won't; swimming would get the satellite phone wet and ruin it. Just use the phone to call me and Xanatos the minute you return from Avalon, no matter where you end up, and accept Xanatos' offer of a plane to fly everyone straight home." Avalon might have its own ideas about where the travelers 'needed to be' and where it would send them, but so far as Elisa was concerned, magical islands did not always know best. Thankfully, Xanatos was in full agreement with her on that point, and had supplied the special satellite phone even before she could bring herself to ask on Goliath's behalf.

Goliath promised, and they spent a little more time murmuring sweet nothings to each other before Elisa glanced at her watch again. She'd been out in the phone booth ten minutes already, and she never spent more than fifteen minutes on these calls; the length of a standard coffee break. "Goliath, I need to head back inside and return to work, before someone comes out here." The last thing she wanted was for someone to come wandering out of the precinct on some pretext of concern for her, and start listening in on her half of the conversation. All those nosy coworkers of hers, just dying to pry into her private life…

But neither Goliath nor Elisa found it easy to say goodbye this time. Normally they ended their conversations with 'Same time tomorrow night', but this would be the last call for a very, very long time. Finally, after the third or fourth variation of "I love you; be careful out there," Elisa steeled herself and hung up. But she kept her hand on the phone receiver for a few moments longer, standing with her head bowed. "Please, God… or Dragon, if you're listening… bring him back safe and sound. Please." Then she straightened her posture and opened the phone booth door, shivering in the chill December air as she went back inside the precinct.

_**Today, four hours ago**_**:**

The early afternoon sun shone brightly through the windows of the helicopter that Fox expertly piloted through the sky over Manhattan. It was a short jaunt for her today, just from the Aerie Building to her father's home atop the Cyberbiotics main complex, but she meant to enjoy every minute of it. It had really been too long since she'd been in the air as a pilot.

She glanced over at the seat next to her and smiled. Alexander was sound asleep in the special carseat she'd had made to fit in the helicopter seat. He had fussed when she'd put the custom-made protective earmuffs on him back at the castle, but she'd ignored his protests and fastened the strap under his chin; helicopters were just too noisy for long exposure without some hearing protection. And now he was conked out again, just moments after takeoff. She supposed it was like the folk wisdom of lulling a baby to sleep with a long drive in a car; the vibrations that seeped through the airframe and everything inside it were like a mechanical lullaby.

The helipad atop the Cyberbiotics building came into view, and within minutes she was landing gently in the center of the giant **H** and shutting the engine down. Once the rotors had slowed to a stop, two people approached while she was still unbuckling Alexander from the carseat; Preston Vogel, stiff and formal as ever, and her father Halcyon Renard in his roboticized wheelchair. She opened the door and carried the still-sleeping Alexander out, to deposit him with a smile in his grandfather's waiting arms. "Hey, Grandpa! Don't worry, he'll be awake and ready to shower you with drool and baby-talk in just a few minutes. And if we're lucky, he'll wait a few minutes more before needing another diaper change," as she reached back inside to grab the diaper-and-bottle bag that Anne had prepared for her before leaving.

"Hello, grandson," Halcyon said softly to the sleeping infant, a rare smile creasing his wrinkled features as he lightly stroked Alexander's cheek. Then he reached for the controls of his motorized chair, saying decisively, "Let's get out of this cold weather."

"Good idea," Fox said, watching her breath puff out in white clouds. As they headed for the roof exit, she asked playfully, "So, Vogel, cracked a smile lately? I hear smiling is all the fashion these days…"

"I don't recall whether I have, Mrs. Xanatos," Vogel said stiffly.

"Don't tease the man, Janine," Halcyon said sternly as he touched another control on his wheelchair, and the door to the elevator whisked open for them. After a pause, he continued, "I thought I taught you better than to tease the emotionally handicapped."

"…Daddy, did you just make a _**joke**_?" Fox asked incredulously as the elevator doors closed behind them.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_**Today, three hours ago**_**:**

Back at the castle, Anne looked over the list that David Xanatos had handed her and pursed her lips. "Mmm… this is _almost_ all of the children."

" 'Almost'? Who did I miss?" Xanatos asked, not quite indignant. "I had a census taken and Talon himself assured me that this is every child under the age of thirteen currently living in the Labyrinth."

"Oh, it's everyone who's living there now, but not every child who's lived in the Labyrinth until recently; you forgot Eric and Sarah Turken. They and their parents may have moved into an apartment now, thanks to Brian Turken having found a job with your help, but I doubt they're making enough yet to afford Christmas presents for their children. It'd be a shame if they had nothing under their tree on Christmas morning because they had to choose rent over presents, and that's if they even have a tree this year."

"Good point," he admitted. "Well, add them to the list for buying presents. And tell Owen on your way out to call one of the nurseries selling trees, and have them whip up a gift certificate good for one prime-cut Christmas tree. With a couple boxes of ornaments thrown in too."

"I shall take care of that immediately, sir," Owen Burnett said as he stepped into the room. "And have the gift certificate sent by special courier to their door before nightfall, given that there are only a few days left before Christmas."

"Good idea, Owen. Got the cash ready for Anne?" David asked him. He'd decided earlier that it should only take a couple thousand dollars to buy decent Christmas presents for all the Labyrinth children, and they always had at least that much petty cash on hand in the castle.

"It is ready, sir, but if I may offer a suggestion? If I were to accompany Anne to FAO Schwarz and pay for all the presents with the company credit card, then the presents may be written off as a charitable donation and the receipt given to our Accounting department, for use when calculating our taxes."

"That's a good idea, Owen! There's nothing wrong with saving receipts of charitable donations, for tax purposes; my family always kept track of how much we donated to UNICEF and the Red Cross," Anne said with a smile. "Tell you what, I'll just make sure Bethany's ready to go while you call the Christmas tree seller; we'll wait for you in the nursery," she said as she headed out of the office with the list of names.

Once they were alone, David reminded his aide, "The Labyrinth isn't a federally recognized charity, Owen."

"A matter that we should rectify soon, sir," Owen said stiffly, adjusting his glasses.

"Sure, sure; as soon as all the folks living down there, including the gargoyles, are federally recognized as _citizens_ instead of _targets_. …You're not fooling me, you know," as David smiled slyly.

"Sir?"

"I know why you're so eager to accompany Anne to FAO Schwarz. Going to 'play-test some toys for Alexander', aren't you? Hey, I did that myself last week while I was in the neighborhood for that meeting with the city council; having kids gives adults a great excuse to play with toys again." David's grin grew wider. "And I'm pretty sure Fox did it too, a few days ago; she came back that afternoon with a surprisingly happy smile for someone who'd supposedly gone out for a vaccine booster shot. Hey, while you're there, ask if they've seen Fox lately, will you? And if they say yes, see if you can get me a copy of their security tapes for that day." David had a bet with himself that, despite all her diatribes against that fashion doll, Fox had visited the Barbie aisle of FAO Schwarz.

"Very well, sir," Owen said stiffly, adjusting his glasses and straightening his tie. David's grin threatened to split his face in two; he'd learned over the years to recognize the signs of Owen's embarrassment.

"And while you're there buying presents for the Labyrinth kids, see if there's anything special that Bethany really wants; something that Anne will say is too expensive. Buy it while they're not looking, and we'll make it a present for her from everyone in the castle," David suggested.

At that, Owen relaxed and the corner of his mouth twitched in what was almost a smile. "An excellent idea, sir."

"Aren't they all, Owen? Now go on, enjoy yourself," David said, dismissing him with a wave of his hand before sitting down at his desk again to go over the files for another corporate takeover. After Owen left, David wondered with a grin what sort of footage he'd get if he later bribed someone to get the security tapes from FAO Schwarz for today's trip. He almost chuckled aloud at the thought of seeing on film, straight-laced Owen gleefully riding the store's giant hobby horse…

Then the smile faded. What if someone else had similar thoughts about the footage of him playing with the model trains?

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_**Today, one hour ago:**_

The sun was low on the horizon, just about to let a cold winter night take over. Atop the Cyberbiotics building, inside her helicopter, Fox strapped Alexander back into his carseat with a gentle kiss on his forehead and smiled at his happy babbling. Yep, the kid was eager to get back into the air again; a born pilot, just like his mother!

She leaned back out of the helicopter to accept the puppy-dog plushie that her father was holding out, bestowing a kiss on his forehead as well. "Thanks for having us over, Daddy. And the invitation's still open to come visit us on Christmas!"

"…I'll consider it," Halcyon Renard said gruffly, to Fox's surprised pleasure. That was a more positive response than she'd expected, given her father's dislike for David. Maybe she'd get the whole family together for Christmas after all...

She gave Alexander his doggie, then began powering up and did the standard preflight checks while her father and Vogel retreated off the helipad. Fuel, check; oil, check; hydraulic pressure, check; all good to go.

…Or maybe not. She frowned at the red light that had just illuminated on the console, TR CHIP. She knew what that warning light was for; every rotary-wing pilot did. The magnetic plug on the tail rotor transmission had collected metal fragments; enough to connect the two electrodes of the chip detector. Metal fragments in the rotor's transmission was Not a Good Thing, and the rule was to immediately land if the light came on in midair, and to not go up at all if the light came on in preflight. But there was a chance that the light coming on was a problem with the light itself, not the tail rotor, precisely because it had come on during startup instead of midair. Besides, it was just the tail rotor, not the main rotor, she knew she was good enough that she could probably compensate for any problems with steering, and the Aerie's helipad was only two miles away…

And her father would hit the roof if he ever found out she was taking any chances at all with his grandson's safety. Fox sighed and powered down again.

Her father and Vogel had been about to enter the elevator back down, but at the sound of the engine powering back down they turned around and came back. "Is something wrong, Janine?"

"Chips light on the tail rotor," Fox told him ruefully. "Can you get one of your mechanics to look at it?"

"Certainly. Vogel, see to it," Halcyon ordered. "In the meantime, let's get Alexander back inside."

Vogel indeed saw to it, and Cyberbiotic's fleet mechanics hopped to it. Less than fifteen minutes later, while Fox was changing Alexander's diaper, Henderson the head mechanic reported, "Definitely chipped, ma'am. Bad enough that the transmission's definitely not safe for flying. You're going to need a new transmission, and we can get it for you if I call the parts supplier right now," he added with a glance at the nearest clock, "but even so it'll take a few hours to get the parts couriered to this building and installed."

"Well, f—_phooey_," Fox muttered with a quick glance at Alexander's innocent face.

"No need to stay past normal working hours for a rush job," Halcyon told his mechanic. "Call the parts supplier, but have it delivered tomorrow. Janine, you can take one of my helicopters instead. Do we have one fueled and ready, Henderson?"

"She can be in the air in five minutes, sir," Henderson assured him.

"And I'd take you up on that offer, except for one thing… Alexander's carseat," Fox sighed. "I had it custom-made to fit that seat, and even so it takes forever to get it installed just right. Our nanny Anne is very particular about infant carseats being installed properly, and she almost took a bite out of one of our mechanics who didn't do it right the first time. No, I'll just call Owen to come pick us up in the limo that has carseats installed." She said to Alexander as she finished fastening his new diaper on, "Looks like we're going home by ground instead of air, kiddo; sorry. Next time, okay?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Owen's cell phone rang while he was examining a king-sized container of Megabloks, which Anne had assured him were excellent interlocking building toys for infants and toddlers. Being much larger than Lego blocks, no child could attempt to eat and choke on a Megablok, and no adult was apt to miss seeing one before painfully stepping on it in bare or stocking feet. Yes, a few hundred of these should do nicely for building play-castles in the nursery. …No, a few thousand, he decided to himself before answering the phone. "Burnett speaking."

"Owen, it's me," he heard Fox say. "The helo's down for repairs, and Alexander and I are stranded at Daddy's place. How soon can you come pick us up?"

"I am currently with Anne and Bethany at FAO Schwarz, shopping for Christmas presents for the Labyrinth children. I believe Anne still has four children to shop for, but if you like, I can drive over and pick you up, and come back for her and Bethany later."

"No, that's fine, finish the shopping, then come pick us up; another few minutes won't kill us," Fox assured him.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_**Now:**_

Night had fallen over Manhattan; a cold, clear night with a full moon hanging in the sky and several stars visible despite the 'light pollution' cast by the city. Fox waved goodbye to her father, sitting in his wheelchair at the front door to the Cyberbiotics building, then turned to step into the limo as Owen held the door for her. Inside the limo, Anne was already buckling Alexander into his carseat, right next to Bethany's carseat. Bethany was excitedly babbling to Alexander about all the amazing toys and sights she'd seen at FAO Schwarz; Fox gathered that it was the first time the child had ever been inside the world-famous toy store. "An'-an'-an' they hadda great big Elmo!" Bethany babbled, holding her arms out and up as far as she could in an attempt to indicate how big. "An' a great big Grover, an' it was _Super_ Grover! When he _**flies**_! It was _**so neat**_!"

"And are either the 'great big' Elmo or Super Grover now stowed in the trunk?" Fox murmured to Owen with a smile.

"Super Grover is being delivered to the castle later," Owen murmured back before wordlessly urging her to get into the limousine; the car's heaters were operating at maximum, and there was no sense in letting all that heat escape.

While fastening her seatbelt, Fox smiled again at the thought of Bethany making Super Grover fly about the nursery, 'Saving the Day' for other toys. Then the smile faded at the thought of what sort of disasters the children might dream up and magically create, for Super Grover to save the toys from…

Anne was almost as happy with the way her day had been spent as Bethany was. As they drove back to the Aerie Building, she told Fox about all the toys, activity sets and children's books she'd bought for the Labyrinth children, and for the surviving gargoyle clones, too; David had agreed with her that the clones, still children in their mental development, should have gifts waiting for them to open on Christmas morning. "And we paid for gift-wrapping and delivery, too; the store manager promised us the gifts would all be wrapped, tagged and delivered to the Aerie building tomorrow. Then we'll drive them down to the Labyrinth entrance in the afternoon and help Talon and Claw sneak them down to the storeroom, for hiding until Christmas morning. There'll be _three_ gifts under the tree for every child on Christmas morning! And then Owen, bless his heart, he bought a gift for _all_ the children—an entire playground set! It's got four swings, two slides, a play-fort _and_ a separate merry-go-round; the kids will go crazy over it! And I know just the room down there it can be set up in, too! The playground set put us way over the two-thousand-dollar limit, but Owen paid for the difference _out of his own wallet_!"

"Aww… Owen, you're such a softie when it comes to kids," Fox teased Owen with a grin.

From the rear, she could see Owen removing one hand from the steering wheel to stiffly adjust his tie as he said firmly, "Physical activity is an important part of a child's development. With the playground set, the children can engage in physical activity without running rampant in the tunnels and getting in the (yawwn) pardon me, in the way of the adults."

"Uh-huh. Sure, you bet; very logical reasoning. And did you happen to play-test that merry-go-round? Just to make sure a kid could spin it around fast enough to get a thrilling ride?" Fox asked with a grin.

But instead of answering, Owen slumped forward in his seat. Fox thought at first he was trying to hide a blushing face…

But ten seconds later, all the vehicle's occupants were unconscious.

The car slowed to a stop in the middle of the street, and its hazard lights came on, blinking bright red and white in the darkened street; warning other cars away from impact with the obstacle it presented.

Two minutes later, a large delivery truck drove up behind it, then maneuvered around to get just in front of the limousine.

And less than three minutes after its arrival, the truck drove off, with the limousine now stowed in the cargo hold.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

David's stomach rumbled abruptly, reminding him that it needed food on a periodic basis. Startled, he looked at the clock and was surprised at how late it was; he'd been so occupied with business deals that he hadn't noticed the hours flying by, and now it was well past dinnertime.

Why hadn't Fox or Owen called him to dinner yet? They should be home by now… But when he left his office and wandered the castle to look for them, they weren't there, and neither were the kids and Anne Marsden. Fox had called him earlier to let him know that her private helicopter was down for repairs, so they'd be riding back with Owen and Anne. David supposed that Owen had picked her and Alexander up, then taken them back to FAO Schwarz to help Anne finish picking out presents. But it surely didn't take this long to buy toys for twenty-one kids and four gargoyle clones, even with Alex and Bethany 'helping' by probably insisting on play-testing everything first. What was keeping them away for so long?

He pulled out his cell phone to call Fox, but it rang just as he was about to open it. Good timing, he thought as he flipped it open to receive the call. "Fox, honey, I was just wondering where you were…"

And then his world came crashing down on him.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Fox had a hangover. A really, really bad hangover. And she'd been sleeping on something cold and hard instead of soft like a bed, so she must have gotten in another drinking contest and passed out under a table again. Damn that Dingo, how could he hold so much booze? Outdrinking her and Wolf together, time after time…

Aspirin and tomato juice, that's what she needed. Lots and lots of aspirin and tomato juice. The Pack always made sure their barracks or hotel rooms were stocked with plenty of both; she just had to crawl out from under the table and over to the fridge. And she'd do it, too, in another million years or so.

"Bethany? Oh god, Bethany, wake up! Please, sweetie, wake up for mommy…"

_??_ Anne the nanny wasn't part of the Pack… Fox reluctantly opened her eyes, squinting in the sudden harsh glare, and rolled over to face the voice she heard. After a moment, her eyes focused on the figures in front of her: Anne Marsden, on her hands and knees, balancing so she could lightly shake her daughter Bethany, sprawled face-up on the floor.

The utter wrongness of the sight brought Fox to full alertness in two seconds, despite her pounding head. "Anne, what happened? _Where's Alexander_?"

"I-I don't know what happened, I just woke up here… and Alexander's next to you, or at least his carrier is! Anne shakily pointed past Fox before pleading again, "Bethany, please wake up…"

Fox got onto her hands and knees too, and checked on Alex. He was in his carrier, but lying so still, and his face looked grayish… She hurriedly undid the straps and snatched him close to her, and almost wept when she felt his tiny heartbeat and the whisper of his breath. At least he was alive!

Still sitting back on her haunches and holding her son, she looked around, surveying the room. A cell, roughly twelve feet by twelve feet wide, no windows, and every surface—walls, ceiling, floor, and the door on the far side—was made of steel. The door was easily discernable from the walls but featureless; no hinges on their side, and no doorknob either. There was a small pile of water bottles and packets of food tucked into a corner, and a covered plastic pail along with the diaper bag; they were intended to stay in the cell a while… She swore, not caring for the moment about Alexander hearing words he shouldn't yet. "We've been kidnapped!"

"_Very astute_," came a voice from the ceiling; a speaker grid embedded there just inches away from the light, which was also surrounded by fine steel mesh. The voice was mechanized, heavily distorted as it said, "_Enjoy your stay, ladies, until the ransom is paid_."

"Ransom?! B-but I—who are you?!" Anne cried out. "Why are you doing this? What will you do to us if--"

"Save your breath, Anne," Fox said bitterly. "He's not going to tell us who he is; he wouldn't have gone to the effort of making this cell if he had any intentions of us seeing his face. And as for why, that's pretty obvious. David has money, and this asshole wants some of it."

"_Quite a bit of it, actually_," the mechanized voice said, sounding almost cheerful. "_And something else as well… namely, a gargoyle's head on a platter. And now that you're awake, it's time to make the ransom call_." And Fox heard a faint click, as the speaker turned off.

"A gargoyle's head on…" Anne shuddered. "Oh god, we've been captured by the Quarrymen!"

"Don't be so sure," Fox told her. "The clan has made lots of enemies over the past two years." She could think of at least three other people and organizations that would likely want a gargoyle's head on a platter, and that was without even trying. Though as to how many of them would have the resources to do what their kidnapper had done… "Anne, what's the last thing you remember?"

"I… we were in the car, heading back to the castle. All of us plus—Owen! Where's Owen?" as Anne looked around frantically.

"Not here, obviously. The kidnappers may have left him behind when they got us, figuring he was just a chauffeur, not worth any ransom. Or maybe he's in another cell nearby. Or maybe…" Fox decided not to finish that sentence; Anne was looking pale enough already. After checking a sore feeling on her left arm and finding a small red welt there, she said, "Look over Bethany's arms and legs, will you? Look for a mark like a small welt, or a pinprick," as she did the same with Alexander, sliding up his little sleeves and pants legs to inspect his limbs.

"I found one, on her left arm… she's been drugged?"

"We were all drugged," Fox corrected Anne, with her teeth bared in a silent snarl as she saw a similar mark on her baby's tiny arm. "Last thing I remember was sitting in the car and watching Owen slump forward; he was unconscious. I undid my seat belt and was getting ready to climb to the front seat to take control of the car, and that's the last thing I remember. We must have been gassed unconscious; something emanating from the dashboard, since it affected Owen first. Gassed while driving; the car probably crashed, and the kidnappers just came along and pulled us from the wreckage before the cops showed up. Probably put on a Good Samaritan show for any onlookers, too!"

Considering she'd been out of her seat at the time, she was lucky she hadn't gone flying at the time of the crash and taken a fatal blow to the head or chest. But all in all, the method of kidnapping was a clever ploy, and she thought briefly about congratulating the head kidnapper on his cleverness… right before she ripped his head off with her bare hands.

Fox continued the scenario, "Once they had us out of the car they drugged us again, that time with shots, to keep us quiet until we were secured. And the bastards probably didn't think to calculate the exact dosage for _a baby and a three-year-old girl!_" she shouted at the ceiling. "If my son dies from this or suffers brain damage, I will _hunt you down and kill you slowly,_ you hear me?!"

But there was no answer, not for a few long seconds. Then suddenly they heard David's voice, sounding frantic: "_Fox? Fox, can you hear me?! April 17__th__, 1988_!"

"The boardroom conference table," she said back loudly. It was their recognition phrase, the way he'd know for sure it was Fox speaking and vice versa; giving the date and the place they had first had sex. Now they'd have to get a new recognition phrase; that one was compromised… "I'm here, and so is Alex! And Anne, and Bethany, but the kids are still unconscious! They were drugged, and the bastard used too much on them! I can't tell yet how much--"

"_Not too much at all_," the mechanized voice interrupted her. "_I calculated precisely how much would be needed to keep a pair of brats unconscious instead of crying, for as long as possible. Crying children are such an annoyance, aren't they_?"

Fox told the owner of that voice to do something that was physiologically impossible for the average male. And another thing that was possible, but would leave him very dead and in a state for the coroner to marvel over.

"_Tsk tsk, such language in front of the children_!" the voice chided her a few seconds later. "_Does your husband know you use such foul language? If not, he doesn't know yet; you were cut off before you could give him much more than your first few words, which must have been a recognition phrase. How charming! Shall I guess what meaning it has for you_?"

Fox gave the voice more instructions. Several more instructions which, if followed, would result in a corpse that would give even a coroner nightmares. Interspersed with the instructions were commentary on their kidnapper's probable parentage, and more distasteful personal habits. By that time Anne was staring at her, utterly appalled, but just then Fox didn't care. And she outdid herself, nearly turning the air a sulfurous blue, when the voice just laughed at her before turning the speaker off.

After that, they sat in silence for a while. A sullen silence on Fox's part, sullen with more than a little embarrassment. She'd lost her temper, and that was always stupid; particularly stupid when done in front of an employee and semi-friend. Finally she muttered, "Sorry if you were offended."

"Actually… I found it _educational_," Anne said wryly. "Um… You led an interesting life long before marrying Mr. Xanatos, didn't you?"

"Yeah, you could say that," Fox said absently while leaning back and examining the ceiling, looking for the hidden cameras she knew would be there. Yep, there was one… where was the other? Anyone who went to this much trouble to secure prisoners would have more than one security camera monitoring them, wouldn't they?

There; that was the port for the second camera, high in a corner of the walls instead of mounted in the ceiling. Much better disguised than the first camera, and she might have missed it if she hadn't been looking specifically for it. More points for their kidnapper's cleverness. So the first camera gave one view of the cell, and the second camera gave another. Assume panoramic lenses for both, and nearly every point in the cell was covered. And they were obviously wired for sound, too. That made secretly planning an escape from their cell difficult…

But not impossible. "Yeah, I led an interesting life. Learned a little of everything, here and there… but let's not talk about me right now," she said as she sat cross-legged with her son in her lap, facing Anne, and away from the second camera. "Let's talk about you, Anne; you and your friends. You're friends with that girl Dana, aren't you? I was at their wedding…" And, hunched over so the overhead camera couldn't see her hands hovering above Alex, Fox made a series of gestures with her right hand: a loosely clenched fist with the thumb alongside, then four fingers straight up with the thumb folded across the palm, and finally an open cupping grip, turned sideways. The symbols in American Sign Language for the first three letters of the alphabet; A, B and C.

Fox had learned basic sign language years ago, while traveling the globe as a mercenary; there were times when the ability to talk with your comrades without uttering a word was not only useful, but life-saving. Dana Labyrinth, Claw's wife, was deaf as the proverbial post. And Fox had overheard Hudson say that Dana had driven several Labyrinth residents to learn sign language, so they could communicate with her and Claw. It was a long shot, seeing if Anne had been one of those residents, but now was a time for long shots.

Anne's eyes widened; then she smiled broadly and said "Yes, I am! She's very nice, once you get to know her. Very kind and helpful, and generous with what she knows," and as she spoke, she made a swift gesture right back, touching three fingers to her thumb while the index finger pointed upwards; the Ameslan symbol for D.

"Always good qualities in a lady," Fox said, while swiftly raising a hand to stop Anne from making any more letter-symbols; Anne's hands were in plain view of the second camera. She'd have to do some maneuvering later on, position them so their hands couldn't be seen, and that could wait until she had something important to communicate via sign. But just knowing they had a way of communicating unheard and even unnoticed, gave her a tiny thrill of hope. And it should surely raise Anne's spirits too; Fox had been held prisoner enough times to know how important it was to keep one's morale up.

To maintain the façade that they were just talking to pass the time, she said, "Dana and her husband make a nice couple; they're good people. In fact, they remind me of a missionary couple I once knew, years ago in Africa. Did I ever tell you about the time I spent in Africa?" And she proceeded to tell a cheery and extremely bowdlerized version of her adventures in Africa, glancing down at Alexander in her lap every other minute.

Fox didn't believe for a moment that their kidnapper precisely calculated the dosage of general anesthetic to keep an infant asleep as long as possible without harming him; the bastard had just been trying to convey the impression that he'd thought of everything, and was perfectly in control of every aspect of their situation. Which he might be for the moment, but Fox vowed that would change as soon as possible. But right now, all that mattered was her baby's well-being. _Please_, Alexander, wake up soon…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_**Kidnapped**_. Oh god, they'd been _kidnapped_. David hadn't wanted to believe it, even though the person who'd called him using Fox's cell phone had clearly not been Fox. But then he'd heard her voice, and the tension in it even as she gave him her half of their recognition phrase…

Which had pretty damn stupid of him, letting the kidnapper listen in on their private keys to recognizing each other. What had he been thinking?!

He _hadn't_ been thinking. He'd been gripped by blind panic, at the thought of his precious son and Fox in the hands of kidnappers. Panic made people do stupid things. And now it was time to stop panicking and start thinking clearly. The lives of his wife and son depended on it.

Oh god, they'd been _kidnapped_…

But he'd made plans for this; contingencies. Kidnap threats were a fact of life for the very rich. He raced for the security room, and activated the system he'd put in place months before Alexander had been born:

Every single baby shirt and onesie that Alexander wore was double-layered; not just for insulating warmth, but to hide the microchips sewn into them, each embedded in the side seam under the right sleeve. Waterproofed microchips that were the best semi-active GPS beacons money could buy; emitting no signal until activated by a programmed pulse sequence on a special frequency, one of the two dozen that he'd had reserved by the FCC for Xanatos Enterprises' private use. As he pressed the last key on the keyboard, telling the computer to send the signal out, he pictured in his mind's eye the special antenna arrays built into the sides of the castle extending forth from their niches, and broadcasting that pulse sequence all over the city. He turned to the monitor and the map of the city presented on it, watching it tensely. _Come on, let's see that little dot… Show me where my son is_!

But no little dot showed up on the monitor. Wherever they were being kept, it must be behind walls thick enough to block the signal. Unless they'd been taken clear out of the city already…

More commands entered into the computer, and the pulse sequence was sent up to a satellite. A communications satellite which activated circuitry that had been installed but never used before, sending out 'master' signals to eleven other satellites orbiting the earth. For ten seconds, all cell phone usage on the North American continent was temporarily interrupted; instead of phone conversations, the pulse sequence was broadcast instead. While Xanatos looked at a monitor now showing a grid map of the entire continent instead of the city, searching…

There! A signal! Coming from California! He pounded the keyboard to refocus the search, homing in on the beacon until he had the exact city, then the street address….

Of the special children's tailoring shop that made Alexander's shirts. _Dammit_!

All right, go to plan C. He'd had standard GPS beacons installed in each of the limousines a long time ago, operating on another private frequency; he could find any car in the fleet, anywhere on the continent. If they'd been kidnapped in public right from FAO Schwarz, he'd surely have heard from the police by now, so they'd probably been nabbed while in transit. Finding the limo might give him clues to finding the kidnappers.

But the GPS only showed the three limousines down in the garage, not the fourth one that Owen had taken for the gift shopping. Dammit, how had they found and disabled that beacon? Or had the limo also been put under heavy lead shielding to block it?

Okay, so the beacons were useless. His own ears and brain, then. What precisely had the kidnapper said, what possible clues to identity had been present in that voice, and what sort of background noise had come through with the voice?

In response to his words to whom he'd thought had been Fox, an electronically distorted voice had said, "_How good of you to be concerned about her safety. That means you'll be interested in your wife and son's safe return, then_."

Shock had derailed his mind enough that at first all he could stammer was "Wh-who are you?"

"_No, no; that's not the right question. The question you should be asking is 'how much will it cost?' And the answer to that question is: one hundred million dollars, and the head of a gargoyle. That's how much it will cost you, if you have any interest in seeing your wife and son again_."

He'd gotten enough brain cells working again by that point to say bluntly, "I don't believe you. You expect me to just take your word for it that you have them, but they're still alive and in good health? I'm not going to pay money for corpses. _**Prove**_ to me that they're alive, or I'm ending this call right now."

"_I'd expected as much_," the kidnapper said with what sounded like a chuckle. "_Would you like to talk to your wife? She's awake now, and probably quite anxious to hear from you too_…"

There'd been a faint click, and he'd heard Fox's voice, for just a few precious moments. Long enough for her to give the recognition phrase, then say "I'm here, and so is Alex! And A--" and then she'd been cut off.

"_Now you have your proof_," the kidnapper had told him. "_And if you want more than that, you'll have to pay for it. One hundred million dollars, and a gargoyle's head on a platter. You have seven days to collect both. And no police, of course; if you contact them, I'll know about it. And your wife and child will __**suffer**__ for it. I'll contact you again soon, Xanatos_."

"Wait! I'll pay that and even a little extra… another twenty million, if you return the nanny, her child and Owen Burnett as well! What do you say to another twenty million?" Xanatos had been frantic to just keep the voice on the line for a while longer; even while he'd been demanding proof that Fox and Alexander were alive, he'd been running back to his office to plug the cell phone into its cradle. A cradle that not only recharged the cell phone, but at the flick of a switch could transfer it to speakerphone, and to a recording device. When he'd mentioned Owen's name, he was almost at the office door…

But the kidnapper's only response to the offer had been a bark of laughter, before abruptly hanging up just as Xanatos was about to put the phone in its cradle.

So, no recording. And the voice had been electronically distorted, so all that he could tell was that the caller was educated; no street slang, no discernable accent. But had there been any background noises that might give him clues to their location? He wracked his brains, but could only recall one sound he'd heard while the voice was talking, for just one moment; a faint beeping sound, the sound a computer made sometimes while operating. But even personal computers were everywhere these days; not quite one in every household, but they were common enough that a computer's presence was no real clue at all.

Fox's voice… had echoed, just a bit. Echoed as if she'd been in a room with metal walls. Metal walls thick enough to block Alex's beacon signal. Could that information be useful somehow? Maybe…

But right now, he had a few phone calls to make. The kidnapper had said no police, and given what resources he obviously already possessed, David was inclined to believe the warning about the kidnapper knowing if police became involved. But David had more resources available than just the police…

His first call was to New Orleans.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

The call reached New Orleans just a few seconds too late; by the time Brooklyn had been called to and picked up the phone, Goliath had already boarded the first of two pirogues that had been tied together and prepared for a journey. And by the time Xanatos told Brooklyn what had happened, Goliath had chanted the travel spell that triggered the magical mists of Avalon, and transported himself, Hudson, Hudson's new mate Ursula, Bronx, Angela and two single females of the New Orleans clan to Avalon.

Arriving at the dock too late to stop the travelers from leaving, Brooklyn told everyone else what Xanatos had told him about the kidnapping, and that a jet that would be waiting for them at the New Orleans airport; Xanatos had said he would have a flight arranged for them within fifteen minutes. The fastest way to get the gargoyles to the airport would be the 18-wheeler truck that would have been their transportation to New York a few nights later… but it wasn't ready to go yet; the truck cab and its remodeled cargo trailer were several yards apart, and the truck hadn't been driven for days.

Marcel LeBeau, the truck driver in the New Orleans clan, immediately hopped into the cab of his rig and started the engine. He rolled down the window and hollered to Brooklyn and Adam, "It take a few minutes fo' dis beast to warm up an' be ready to roll; use de time to hook up de trailer an' get de last of everyone's gear on board!"

Adam immediately shouted for his strongest clan members present. "Joseph, Adelbert, Catherine, Martin! Get that trailer over to the truck cab and hitched up! Thomas, Etienne, help with the wiring hookups!"

And Brooklyn shouted, "Everyone going to Manhattan, you have _three minutes_ to run get your belongings and get them on board that truck; if they're not on by then, someone can mail 'em up after you!"

Isabel, Rebecca and Robert dashed for their studios and workshops and other places, to get the few items that hadn't already been loaded into the truck. Lexington and Broadway, who had come down from Manhattan with nothing but their loincloths, gathered around Brooklyn and demanded every scrap of information he could give them about the kidnapping. "There'll be time to talk on the way to the airport," Brooklyn said tersely, just before running for the mansion. "I'm getting that cell phone Goliath left for me, the one he used for talking to Elisa! Lex, help with the truck's electrical hookups if they need it!"

Broadway turned to his mate Martha and said anxiously, "Martha, honey, I know we'd talked about our staying here for a while longer, until things are better, but…"

"But plans have just changed," Martha finished for him. Neither the reason he'd given Goliath and Adam—concern over Angela's state of mind whenever she saw the two of them together—nor the _real_ reason for extending their stay in New Orleans, Broadway's fears that his injured wing wasn't yet ready for the rigors of routine patrols in Manhattan… None of that was particularly important when compared to what they'd just been told.

Broadway nodded. "I have to go back there _**now**_. The kids and their mothers are in danger!"

"I understand. And I'm going with you."

He gave her a startled look. "But you haven't even started packing your stuff yet; your manuscripts and your cookbooks and--"

"And all that can wait until later! I can write a list and send it down, and have my things mailed or sent UPS up to New York… but your human clan members are in danger now, so we're going now! So let's help everyone put the truck together, and get inside."

At the same time, Adam was addressing his clan. "I'm going with the Manhattan Clan up to New York; while I'm gone, Stephen's in charge! And I _ask_ for volunteers to come up with me. People, this will be _**highly dangerous**_! We're going into a _war zone_, a war declared by the Quarrymen on all gargoyles! And whoever would dare to kidnap the wife and son of a billionaire is sure to also be armed and dangerous, and may well be expecting our involvement!"

Grunting and straining with the others to haul the heavy trailer over to where the truck cab was warming its engine up, Martin said with his fangs bared, "I been itching to take on a Quarryman anyway, for that ambush the bastards set for those poor clone guys; count me in!"

"And me," Etienne said with a smile that also bared his fangs. "Two minutes while I get my stash of nasties!" as he left Thomas and Marcel to deal with the trailer's electrical hookups while he dashed for the mansion.

"And me! Be right back!" Lucy shouted over her shoulder as she also ran for the mansion.

Nearly a dozen other New Orleans clan members were also chiming in. Including Lucretia and Cassius, who glanced at each other, then nodded in wordless agreement before Cassius informed Adam with a grim smile, "We're going. Clan leader, permission to be lethal?"

"In self-defense and as a last resort, permission granted," Adam said tersely. Adding with a pointed finger, "And I mean that _as a last resort_, Cassius!"

Adam also accepted Martin's mate Cecelia coming along, telling her to grab the portable emergency medical kit; as the clan's junior healer, she would be needed to tend to any who were wounded in the search. But he turned down several other volunteers, saying that only the clan's most skilled fighters would likely have a chance against the Quarrymen who could also take to the skies on hovercycles, and fight them with distance weapons like the electrified-net-mortars that Goliath had told them about.

Erasmus, the clan's chronicler, was one of those turned down, but he stubbornly insisted to Adam, "Where Lucy goes, I go!"

Adam shook his head once more. "Erasmus… you're simply not as fast and lethal as Lucy is, and we're soaring into skies full of killers!"

"Then why is Martha going?" as Erasmus pointed over to the trailer, which had just been connected to the truck cab; Martha and Broadway were already opening the trailer's back doors and climbing in together. "She may be Broadway's mate, but she's no warrior at all; she hasn't been on a patrol for years!"

"She's going because she's technically part of the Manhattan clan now, and I can't forbid her from going!" Adam snapped, before sighing. "And If I tell you no, you'll probably stow away like Rebecca did, won't you? All right, get in the truck. No, do _**not**_ go get more notebooks! In fact, leave the one in your hand behind! I don't want you to get preoccupied with writing notes for the chronicles, and forgetting to watch your back!"

Two minutes later, the truck and cargo van were completely hooked up and gargoyles were piling into the back. Etienne paused long enough to give a hug and kiss to his mate Catherine, the bovine-looking rookery keeper, who grabbed his fan-shaped ears and stared into his eyes as she said fiercely, "You come back to me, you hear?"

"Tell the hatchlings I'll be back and waggling these ears for them in just a few nights," Etienne said with a grin.

"You'd better! All right, Tricky, give 'em hell!" as she gave him a rib-creaking hug and a wet bovine kiss before letting go so he could get into the truck.

As soon as the doors were closed, Marcel gave a warning blast on the air horn and put the truck in gear, heading for the airport. "It'll be just over an hour's drive," Adam informed Brooklyn as everyone sat down on the benches lining the inner walls of the cargo hold.

Brooklyn nodded curtly. "Glad you folks are coming along. With so many clan members gone to Avalon, we're seriously understrength otherwise." He looked at the bags at Lucy and Etienne's feet, and asked, "What are you guys bringing along? Weapons of some sort? An archer could come in handy…"

"I'm not an archer, but I'm fairly accurate with these," Lucy said sweetly as she opened her carpet bag and pulled out a series of stilettos; sixteen needle-sharp throwing knives, in sheaths that she proceeded to strap onto her arms and legs. With one more, smaller than the rest, that she tucked into her hair after rolling it up into a bun.

"By 'fairly accurate', she means that she can stick one in the throat of a running deer over twenty yards away," Adam said with a grim smile. "And pin a man's feet to the floor while he's running, or his hand to the wall before he can go for his gun… You have a full set again? I thought you lost three of them in that raid on the gun-runners last month."

"I did, but the replacements came in from Germany a full three weeks ahead of schedule; did you pay extra for a rush order, dear heart?" Lucy asked Erasmus.

Erasmus nodded to his mate, then explained to the others, "I gave them to her last night, during the Solstice ceremony; I figured if I'd waited and she unwrapped them on Christmas morning, the hatchlings would have been asking Lucy to share her new toys with them."

"No doubt they would," Adam agreed wryly. Then he looked over at Etienne with a grim smile. "All right, Etienne; let's see what you brought. Everything you've been saving up since I forbade anything stronger than joy buzzers, am I right?"

"What, you brought a bag of _practical joke stuff_ with you?" Broadway said incredulously. "Etienne, I like fun as much as anyone, but this is no time for playing jokes on people!"

"It depends on what you call a good joke," Etienne said cheerfully as he opened the bag. "I promised Adam a long time ago that I'd never do more than embarrass anyone in the clan with my practical jokes… but sometimes I find stuff on patrol and after raids that I think is worth keeping, just in case I have a use for it later. Let's see… two smoke canisters, three road flares, two tear gas grenades, four 'flash-bangs' or stun grenades—whups, careful, don't let that roll away—a cake of C-4, the detonator for it—where's the timer? Ah, here it is—and there's the other smoke grenade, I thought I had three of them… and two of my own creations; 'tar babies'!" He pulled out and hefted what appeared to be a homemade grenade as he explained with a grin, "Toss one of these through a window, and when it blows, everyone and everything within spattering distance is covered in a super-fast-sticking epoxy. Guaranteed to upset and distract people, plus it's kinda hard to draw a gun when it's just been glued into its holster."

Lexington grinned. "You have a nasty sense of humor, and I like it!"

"What, no regular exploding grenades?" Martin asked, apparently disappointed, and no one was sure if he was joking or not.

"Nope; Adam made me promise to turn over to Keith and the police, any grenades that were designed to be lethal."

"And the C-4?" Adam asked with a raised brow ridge. "I'd put that in the 'lethal' category…"

Etienne gave his clan leader a shrug and mock-innocent look as he said, "You never said anything about C-4, just the grenades!"

"Some of that stuff just might come in handy if we encounter Quarrymen while searching, or when we find our people and the bastards who kidnapped them," Brooklyn said grimly. Then he pulled out the cell phone that Goliath had left behind for him. "Lex, do you remember the phone number for the castle?"

"Um… no; I never had to call our own home," Lexington said with chagrin. "But I remember Elisa's home number, and she might not have left for work yet…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Elisa was indeed still at home; eating a lonely meal before work, while absently petting her cat Cagney and occasionally eyeing the phone in her apartment, before resolutely turning away from it yet again. She and Goliath had said their goodbyes last night, and calling him again before he left would only prolong the agony, and possibly distract him to the point that he might forget something important for the journey to Avalon. So no, she wouldn't call. Even if she really, really wanted to hear his voice again…

But when the phone rang, she tossed her fork aside and ran for the phone with a smile on her face. She picked up the receiver and cooed, "Hey, Big Guy; I was hoping you'd call…"

"Elisa, it's me, Brooklyn," was the response she got instead. "We got called a few minutes too late; Goliath and everyone else bound for Avalon just left, a few seconds before I could stop 'em. But Adam and seven of his clan members are coming up with us and our mates, and all of us ready for trouble. Call Xanatos for us and let him know, will you?"

After Elisa recovered from her embarrassment over showing her mushy side to someone who _wasn't_ Goliath, she sputtered, "Called too late--trouble--Brooklyn, what's going on?!"

"Didn't Xanatos call you already? He called me less than ten minutes ago, and told me that the kids and their moms have all been kidnapped, along with Owen!"

"WHAAT?!" And two minutes later, after getting all the details she could from Brooklyn, she hung up and called Matt Bluestone. "Matt, be ready for pickup within five minutes! I'll explain why when I see you!" as she tossed the receiver back onto the hook, grabbed her jacket, gun and car keys and ran out the door.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Less than half an hour later, Xanatos was interrupted in his phone call to the Grandmaster of Illuminati, by the intercom speaker; the security guard in the lobby, calling him to tell him that Detectives Maza and Bluestone had strode past him flashing their badges and the special security passes they'd been given, and boarded the express elevator for the castle.

Brooklyn must have called them in, he realized as he curtly acknowledged the security guard before turning the speaker off, and turning back to the phone conversation. "Mr. Duval, you assured me that Oliver Grimm had made the same pact of non-aggression against me, as I swore against him. So I would very, _very_ much appreciate it if you would make enquiries to ensure he is holding up his end of the bargain, and remind him of the consequences of breaking that pact if he has _anything at all_ to do with this kidnapping!"

"I believe a phone call or two can be made on your behalf," the Grandmaster said pleasantly, with as little concern in his voice as if Xanatos had called to inform him that it was raining outside. "Anything else?"

"Yes, Grandmaster, there is." Xanatos took a deep breath before saying, "I humbly request access to and permission to use the All-Seeing Eye."

"Oh, that's simply not feasible anymore, David; not with the world's population at its current level. The last person to lay hands on the All-Seeing Eye was driven insane within seconds. And he was a Level 4 mentat; rather a stronger mind than you have, I'm afraid."

"I'll risk it! Grandmaster, _please_! _My __**wife and son**_!"

"Yes, it's very unfortunate. I shall contact Mr. Grimm on your behalf. And make a phone call to Mr. Hacker as well; he may be of some assistance to you. It's my understanding that the FBI are usually called in on such matters."

"No! The kidnapper said no police!" Xanatos said in alarm.

"Dear fellow, they _always_ say that. I'll call you back after I talk with Mr. Grimm. Good bye," and the Grandmaster hung up on him.

"Kidnappers _**always**_ say 'no police'," Elisa Maza said in an unconscious echo of the Grandmaster's words as she and Matt Bluestone strode into his office, their faces grim as death. "That's because they don't want to get caught! Brooklyn called me, and I called Matt. Now tell us everything!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Five minutes later, Xanatos had told them everything he knew, and stressed again that he didn't want the police officially called in. "I can't risk anything happening to my family if the kidnappers discover that the police are involved. And if they know enough to circumvent all my safeguards for my family, then they almost undoubtedly know enough to have planted moles in the police department ahead of time!"

"Why are you so sure of that?" Elisa cocked an eyebrow at the billionaire.

"Because Xanatos himself has at least two moles in the NYPD," Bluestone told his partner, as her jaw dropped halfway to her chest. "One I'm pretty sure I've pegged already, but at least one more I haven't yet."

"Four altogether, but only one in your precinct," Xanatos said dismissively. "Now can we--"

"_**GodDAMMIT, Xanatos**_!" Elisa exploded. "And YOU!" as she wheeled and glared at her partner. "Why didn't you tell me that before?!"

"Because I'm not _positive_ about just who it is, and I knew you'd rip the precinct apart looking for him if I told you my suspicions, _and __**that doesn't matter right now**_**!" **as Matt glared right back at her."What matters is finding the kids, and their mothers!"

"And Owen, **if** he's still alive," Xanatos added grimly. "Puck is allowed to use his magic to protect and teach Alexander, and he'll take any excuse he can get to cut loose; he should have turned those kidnappers into slugs or even lower life forms the second they made any hostile moves! The fact that he didn't step in to save Alexander and everyone else tells me they got to him first, somehow."

Elisa reluctantly nodded as she turned to face Xanatos again, but shifted her gaze sideways a moment as she muttered, "When all this is over, we're going to have a _talk_ about keeping secrets from partners…"

"Says the partner who lied to me about the gargoyles for over half a year," Matt muttered back.

"_**Please!**_ Can we _**focus**_, here**?!**"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Owen awoke slowly, with an aching head. An aching head and cold feet, and something cold on his ankles and wrists.

He slowly rolled over and got up, surveying his surroundings. A steel cell, roughly 12 feet square. No windows, one door; no knob on the door for opening it. Steel everywhere…

Including on him. Thick steel manacles on his wrists, and steel shackles on his ankles. His shoes and socks had been removed as well, leaving his bare feet in direct contact with the steel floor.

And no sign of Alexander, Bethany, Fox or Anne at all. This was Not Good.

As he got to his feet, an electronically distorted voice issued forth from a speaker embedded in the ceiling. "Good evening, Mister Burnett. Or do you prefer Owen? …Or should I simply call you Puck?"

_**To Be Continued! **_


	2. The Investigators

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

**10.2: Investigators**

_**10 p.m. Eastern Time**_

At the 23rd Precinct, Elisa worked her computer with grim determination. Getting into files she had no business being in, not after being assigned to the Gargoyles Task Force, but they hadn't changed her passwords yet. Matt was intent on his own work at his computer, pulling up file after file; searching for and assembling data that they'd be turning over to other hands in a few hours. Four-fingered hands; the plane with the gargoyles was due to touch down at JFK airport soon after midnight, and they'd been assured that a truck would be ready at Xanatos Enterprises' private hangar, waiting to ferry them into Manhattan.

As soon as the gargoyles reached the Aerie Building, Xanatos would call Elisa, and she would pretend that the call was 'a hot tip on a possible location for the gargoyles' and burn rubber all the way there. She knew that Matt wanted to be the one running to them with information they'd need for the search, but as the head of the GTF, his abrupt absence would be more noticeable than hers. That, and there was another reason Elisa thought it would be for the best if Matt stayed away from the Aerie Building for the rest of the night…

Two agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations had shown up at the Aerie Building while Matt and Elisa were still there; Xanatos had told them that the Grandmaster would contact the FBI, but to get agents there so fast, the Illuminati must have more and higher connections in the Bureau than just low-level agent Martin Hacker.

Elisa knew calling the FBI in had been the right thing to do; they had more resources than the police did, even whole divisions devoted to solving kidnapping cases, and it had been standard procedure to call them in ever since the Weinberger kidnapping case back in the 50's. Elisa had learned about that case; most cops heard of it at least once in their training. The infant Peter Weinberger, kidnapped right off his family's front porch, hadn't been born to rich parents, or even moderately wealthy ones; just a middle-class family with a little nest egg, who'd still been willing to give up all their life savings in order to get their baby boy back. Back then, there had been a ruling that the FBI wasn't called in on kidnapping cases until after a full seven days had lapsed without return of the kidnapping victim. And as the authorities had found out later, by the time the seven days had passed and the FBI had been called in, the baby boy was already dead. After that, the courts had ruled that the FBI could be called in immediately on a kidnapping case; no waiting period, no jurisdiction disputes, not when what mattered most was getting the victims back alive.

The two agents who'd shown up so quickly, had assured Mr. Xanatos that four more were coming up from DC on the next available train; he'd have a team of Kidnapping & Hostage Division agents devoted to finding his wife and child and the other hostages. They'd asked for an office that they could set their equipment up in, and Xanatos told them to take their pick of any room in the lowest level of the castle. All the rooms had been wired for electricity, and the phone tap they wanted to hook up to Xanatos' cellular phone, for when the kidnapper called again, didn't have to be in the same room to tap into that particular cell frequency.

"I've been down there a time or two; I can show you the rooms that would probably be best for setting your equipment up in," Matt had offered.

"Thanks. And you are?" Agent Jasper had asked with a brief smile and his hand outstretched for a handshake.

"Sorry, I should have said earlier. Matt Bluestone," as he shook the agent's hand, then gestured in Elisa as he said, "And this is my partner in the NYPD, Elisa Maza."

Agent Jasper lost his smile, and he said slowly, "Matt Bluestone… Your reputation precedes you." While Agent Hovander, who hadn't said a word since their arrival, frowned in disgust.

For a moment, Elisa hadn't understood why they were acting like that. And then she'd remembered:

While he'd been an agent in the FBI, Matt Bluestone had devoted all the time he could spare from criminal investigations, to hunting for evidence that would help him prove the existence of the Illuminati. And he'd been good enough that Martin Hacker had gotten himself assigned as Bluestone's senior partner, in order to secretly stymie Matt's efforts.

For six years, they'd been partners. Over those six years, Matt had uncovered several possible leads in his search for the Illuminati, only to see all of them run nowhere or just disappear on him. Matt had wondered if someone else in the FBI was working to counter his efforts, but every time he'd brought up the idea, his partner had snorted and told him he was being paranoid.

Paranoid. Obsessive. Hot-tempered, unreliable, delusional… those had been the words used in the final fitness-for-duty evaluation, the one that had gotten Matt fired from the FBI. When he'd gotten too close to the truth, Martin had ruthlessly trashed his reputation and gotten him booted out of the Bureau.

If he hadn't absolutely aced all the entrance exams for the NYPD, Matt would never have been able to work in law enforcement again. And even then, he'd been kept on 'rookie' status a lot longer than any man of his experience should have been, while his superiors watched suspiciously for signs of the character flaws that had been documented for all time in his FBI personnel record. It had gotten to the point where Matt had asked that his service in the FBI be blacked out in the 'work history' section of his NYPD personnel record, and he never talked about that time with friends and coworkers. Even Elisa wouldn't have found out about his years of service in the FBI if she hadn't met Martin Hacker, when she'd gotten involved in the Silver Falcon affair.

Soon after being given membership in the Illuminati—and finding out that Martin Hacker was already a member, and what he'd been up to for all those years—Matt had gotten stinking drunk, and a belligerent enough drunk that Elisa had been forced to pretend to haul him off to the drunk tank herself, before the bartender called other cops to do it. He'd spent the ride back to his apartment cursing Martin Hacker, recalling past times and searches that had been thwarted; teaching Elisa nearly a dozen new expletives in the process.

Since then, Elisa hadn't had any reason to be around Martin Hacker or any other FBI agent. So she'd forgotten how her partner, with his tenacious and brilliantly analytical mind and his honest desire to serve Justice and help people, was viewed by the nation's largest law enforcement organization. Watching how the FBI agents had summarily dismissed Matt, all but openly scorning him, had been a decidedly unpleasant reminder.

But Matt had kept trying, clearly desperate to get involved in some way in the official efforts to find the kidnap victims, when the local police wouldn't even be informed of the crime. He'd kept trying until finally Hovander had spoken, with derision clear in his tone: "Just stick to catching _gargoyles_, Bluestone. Leave the criminals to us."

Fortunately, Elisa had managed to grab Matt's arm and restrain the punch he'd been about to throw. As she'd firmly led him away, she'd hissed in his ear, "He's right, let's stick to the gargoyles! Who don't have to bother with search warrants and habeas corpus, and can get into places that no one else can. But they'll need our help to know where to look!"

So they'd gone to the precinct, ostensibly to do their jobs for the Gargoyles Task Force, but really to compile lists of possible locations, and of suspects. Information from files in every department in the precinct, even tapping into the files from other precincts, using the hacker tips Lexington had once taught her.

Elisa was fairly certain that Anthony Dracon was behind the kidnapping. Even behind bars, he still ran his gang, and had the manpower and organization to pull off such an operation. It was a fact that kidnapping was still occasionally used as a fundraising activity by organized crime. And considering all the ways Dracon's gang had been thwarted by the gargoyles, it would be completely in character for Tony, or his lieutenant 'Glasses' speaking in his stead, to top off his ransom demand with a gargoyle's head.

Matt, on the other hand, was convinced that the Quarrymen were behind the kidnapping; that Oliver Grimm had casually dropped some hints into the ear of Jon Castaway or a Quarryman lieutenant, left a few high-tech items from his own corporation lying around and then ostensibly backed away, "so he could say to the Grandmaster that he didn't know anything about it. Plausible deniability; the corporate officer's favorite ploy."

"You're thinking that because the ransom demand included a gargoyle head?" Elisa had asked on their way to the precinct. "But if the public ever finds out the Quarrymen were behind this kidnapping, there goes their public support!"

"Not the Quarrymen, _**a**_ Quarry_man_; just one or two of them, people they can toss out afterwards if they need to, just like they publicly disavowed and kicked out the guys that busted up the first P.I.T. meeting and invaded the hospital afterwards. But demanding that Xanatos bring them a gargoyle's head was probably too tempting to resist. Think about it; if he actually did it, killed one of them even to save his wife and son, that would turn the clan against him forever. The survivors would leave the castle for good… and be that much easier for the Quarrymen to pick off afterwards."

Remembering the conversation anew, Elisa frowned as she looked up from her computer and glanced over at Matt's desk. Matt was certain that Xanatos had no intention of fulfilling any ransom demands, but Elisa wasn't so sure. It hadn't been all that long ago that Xanatos had been trying to capture and cage the gargoyles, to bring them under his control. And old habits died hard… What if he really did decide to hand over a gargoyle's head? The clan would be right there in the castle come sunrise, easy prey for a man desperate to get his family back…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

When arranging the flight from New Orleans to New York on such short notice, Xanatos hadn't taken the time to find pilots and crewmen who both knew about gargoyles and accepted them. All the pilot and crew of the cargo jet had been told was that they were picking up several passengers who were not going to appear on the manifest, or in fact in front of any crew member. They would just fuel the jet and go through the preflight checks, then keep the rear entrance of the plane open and stay in the pilots' cabin until someone knocked four times on the cabin door, at which point they would take off straight for New York. And that any questions asked of their orders would result in the loss of not only that flight's bonus pay but their Christmas bonuses; any interference given to the passengers would result in the immediate loss of their jobs.

After Adam had closed and sealed the cargo door they'd come in through, Brooklyn knocked four times on the closed door to the cabin and listened intently for the voices within, hoping that once again human greed and fear would prove stronger than their curiosity. Now was definitely _**not**_ the time for patiently educating total strangers on what gargoyles really were, and how they were not the slavering monsters that the Quarrymen had been depicting them as.

Adam still stood at the rear entrance, with one hand on the door handle in case of trouble. But when the rumbling engines increased their pitch and the plane slowly taxied onto the runway, he let go of the handle and went forward to claim a seat, commenting "Having a billionaire for an ally can be handy."

"Way better than having him as an enemy, that's for sure," Brooklyn said, before looking over at Lexington.

As they'd arranged beforehand, as soon as they'd boarded Lexington and Rebecca had started scurrying over every inch of the cargo compartment, looking for and disabling any cameras and microphones they could find. Now, as they also took seats, Lexington gave Brooklyn a nod. "Found two cameras and one audio pickup, all currently disabled. We should be secure now."

"Good," Brooklyn nodded back in acknowledgment.

"So we can continue our conversation from the truck," Adam said. "Which is good, because I still have several questions…"

On their way to the airport in the truck, Brooklyn had had another conversation with Xanatos; Elisa had passed on to the billionaire the number of the cell phone she'd left for Goliath and later Brooklyn's use. Xanatos had given Brooklyn the details for the flight he'd arranged, and Brooklyn had let Xanatos know how many gargoyles were coming and what supplies they would need upon arrival. Then he'd told the billionaire, "Xanatos, whether you like it or not, I'm about to tell these people exactly what Alexander and Bethany have in common; why they're so special. It might turn out to have bearing on why they were kidnapped, or why the kidnapping was successful instead of foiled by Owen's other half."

Xanatos hadn't been happy about that, and if Goliath had been there, he would have been none too happy either; Brooklyn had decided to actively disobey an order that Goliath had given several weeks ago. But Brooklyn was the acting clan leader now, and that meant making hard and unpopular decisions. Including the decision to tell the New Orleans Clan a few secrets that they'd been deliberately holding back until now, all revolving around the Xanatos family's involvement with the Fey and magic.

As Brooklyn had later explained to the others in the truck, "We hadn't told you before now because it's not really our secret to tell; it's theirs, and they asked us to not tell anyone. Which is understandable, considering the way most humans treat magic. Especially considering the fact that there are a lot of humans who think _all_ magic is inherently evil; that only their God is supposed to have powers beyond mortal men, so anyone with magical powers must be getting them from their God's enemy, Satan. That's why you New Orleans folks have been keeping a few secrets from some of your own people, right? Yvette told me a little about your Anastasia."

When Broadway had looked mystified, Brooklyn had said as an aside, "Broadway, Adam can explain that to you later if he feels like it. Anyway, the people coming up to New York to stay would have been told the full truth once they were settled in, but I wouldn't be saying any of this to you now if not for the kidnapping. Because the kidnappers got through or bypassed the family's magical defenses, which means they probably know about the magic somehow, and possibly even have their own magic-wielder. It's possible that they don't know about the magic at all, that they just shot Owen in the head with a sniper-rifle or something before he'd realized there was a threat to Alex, but if they do know… So I decided that all of you had better know about it too."

And explaining just how the Xanatos family was involved with magic meant telling the full truth about their history with the Xanatos family. Which was very different from the heavily edited and distorted history that they'd given the P.I.T. and the New Orleans Clan, though at least they'd told the other gargoyles the truth about Demona's immortality.

Adam had _not_ been pleased to discover how much his clan his clan had been lied to or kept in the dark about, though he'd grudgingly admitted that his clan had their own secrets, and for much the same reasons. His pressing Brooklyn, Lexington and Broadway for further details on the true version of the clan's recent history, and on the abilities their human clan members and allies possessed, had taken so long that they'd arrived at the airport before getting around to discussing Fey weaknesses. Now Adam asked, "Is it true that they're vulnerable to cold iron? Our Anastasia never had a problem with that."

"Then _your_ Anastasia had _mortal_ magic; the kind that most humans and gargoyles with magical talent can wield," Brooklyn responded. "Fey magic is different."

"Like AM versus FM radio waves," Lexington tossed into the conversation. "They're both radio, but with different characteristics and capabilities, used by different circuits and systems."

"Uhh, if you say so, Lex." Brooklyn continued, "Anyway, they have different weaknesses too. And the Fey definitely have a problem with iron; not only can they not cast a spell through it, but they can't touch it directly without getting burned. Even the sound of an iron bell hurts them. We once took out Puck with nothing but an empty steel garbage can; Hudson slammed it down over him while he was distracted, and that put an end to the fight, especially after he gave it a whack with his sword to make it ring. Puck went out cold at the ringing, and didn't wake up for nearly a half-hour afterwards; not until we'd almost finished lugging him and Demona up to the top of a building, to make them reverse the spells Puck had cast on the entire city. Fox doesn't have a problem with iron at all, or at least not that we've ever noticed, but other than that one time she's never used her magic, either. So, if Puck—that is, Owen Burnett--is still alive, he's probably thoroughly bound by iron right now. But honestly, I think that's a pretty damn big if."

Broadway asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Because the first rule of any battle where magic's involved is, _take out the magic user_. Don't give him a chance to use any offensive magic against you, or do anything to bolster his side's defenses. Sometimes that's easy, if you have an inside man. Angela told us the humans' side of the massacre at Castle Wyvern, what her guardians told her had happened during the day; they had a Magus and a Grimorum full of defensive spells, but the Captain of the Guard who betrayed us all, slipped something into the Magus's morning drink. He fell asleep right there at the table and was out like a light for hours, sleeping right through the whole castle falling to the Vikings. Anyway, if you don't have someone on the inside like that, then you have to hit hard and fast, surprise them and take out the magic-user by force before he can cast a spell against you. And frankly, it's a lot easier to take someone out permanently by killing them, than it is to take them out but keep them alive."

"True enough," Adam nodded soberly. "We don't let anyone go out on patrol until they've proven to their trainers that they can remember to pull their punches even in the middle of frenzied combat."

"Yeah, we had to start being extra-careful too, after we woke up in New York. But the rule for fighting magic-users goes pretty much double where Puck is concerned; he's one of the Fey's greatest Tricksters. He'd defend Alexander from bad guys even if he wasn't genuinely fond of the kid, because it gives him an excuse to cut loose and use his magic. The first time the Quarrymen came to attack to castle by day while we were sleeping, Puck decided they were a threat to Alexander too, so he turned the lot of them into _pigeons_. And as a Trickster, he's a firm believer in 'don't get mad, get even'. Any criminal who'd take him out of action but keep him alive, is just begging to be turned into something disgusting later."

"So… in our search, we should assume he's… _gone_, and just concentrate on finding the kids and their moms?" Broadway gnawed on his bottom lip, clearly not happy with the notion.

Brooklyn sighed and ran his talons roughly through his mane, looking at the floor. "Yeah, that's pretty much the operating assumption. Understand, I'm _not_ giving up on him, not at all saying that we should just forget about him; I may not trust the Puck in either form, any farther than I can spit, but he's an ally and sworn to protect Alexander. If we find any evidence that he's still alive, we'll do everything we can to get him back too. But our priority has to be the kids, and their mothers."

Isabel rested a comforting hand on her mate's shoulder. "We'll find them, Brooklyn. We've actually done this a few times before, down in New Orleans; searched for children who'd been kidnapped for one reason or another. We found almost all of them, even one toddler who'd been left by his kidnappers to die in the bayou. We found them, and we'll find your people too."

"Thanks," Brooklyn told her, drawing comfort from her presence and her reassurance. Drawing comfort, and trying hard to draw more hope as well. But New York was so much bigger than New Orleans; there was a lot more ground to cover in their search…

_**Midnight**_

Far below the streets of Manhattan, Heinrich swallowed hard and determinedly told himself to go just a little further. Just a little further down the unlit tunnel, surrounded by Stygian blackness and walls that weren't _really _closing in on him (_**yes they were**__**!**_), not really; it was just his overactive imagination. He was not in any danger (except for being _**buried alive**__**!**_), and he could go just a little further down the tunnel before turning back, to return to the blessed open sky. Just a little further, in hopes of catching Malibu's scent once more…

A scent-trail he'd lost four nights ago. Malibu's trail had ended at the edge of an underground stream, a storm-drain carrying melted snow and slush away from the city streets. Through the faint light reflecting in the water, light that had filtered in from a grating some distance away from the tunnel Heinrich had been standing in, he'd seen no less than six other tunnels with trickles or streams of water feeding into the larger stream. Malibu must have crossed into one of those tunnels, but Heinrich had checked all six of them and found no trace of his scent at the mouth of any of them; the water from the stream must have washed his feet too clean.

But he kept searching regardless. The gargoyle community that Malibu had come from lived somewhere down here, and he had to find them! His family back in Germany was counting on him to make contact with the local gargoyles; to forge an alliance with them, and to give his nephew Gregor playmates from his own species and hope for his future.

Just a little further, he told himself. Just another hundred yards, he could do that much… and then he would allow himself to retreat, back to the nearest opening to street level so he could take to the blessedly open sky again. Just a little further…

A scrabbling sound came from directly in front of him, and he almost jumped right out of his skin. _Lieber Gott_, what monster was down here in the dark with him?

His nose told him what it was, as soon as he stopped panicking like an idiot. A rat; he'd nearly run screaming away from a stupid sewer rat!

He killed the rat a little more violently than necessary, in anger fueled by self-disgust. This was not a good night so far…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

So far, this was turning into a most excellent night.

While taking a break from the work he'd been doing for the last few hours, Thailog congratulated himself on an operation both planned well and executed well. It was worth all the trouble it had taken to get up to this point: building two solid steel cells in his warehouse, and equipping one of the cells with a few extras; rigging a monitoring and communication system for each cell and the rest of the warehouse; stealing a large delivery truck, tinting the windows and teaching himself how to drive it; and finally, kidnapping the child of a Xanatos Enterprises mechanic, and using his hostage to force the father to modify each of Xanatos' limousines to Thailog's specifications.

Mr. Frank Lewis had done excellent work before he'd died, and joined his son at the bottom of the river. The microphones and radio transmitters planted in each limousine had told Thailog when all his targets were in one vehicle together, and the GPS locator had told him exactly where they were. Once he'd driven into position behind them in the truck, the touch of a button on his remote had opened the anesthetic gas capsule planted in the limousine's dashboard, rendering the car's occupants unconscious within seconds. And a touch of another button had overridden the car's onboard computer, giving orders to come to a complete stop and turn off everything but the hazard lights.

Then it had been simply a matter of waiting for traffic to clear enough for Thailog to pull the truck around in front of the limo, get out and simply heave the car into the cargo hold of the truck without being unduly noticed. And the traffic had been surprisingly light for the time of evening; in less than two minutes a window of opportunity had formed, the one-way street clearing of traffic for a block in either direction, giving him the seconds he'd needed to pick up the limo and make his getaway. Two months of preparation followed by flawless execution, and now Stage One was accomplished and Stage Two of his plan was in full effect.

Really, it had surprised him to find his window of opportunity so quickly. He'd thought that he might have to wait several weeks before he could get all his targets—Fox Xanatos, Alexander Xanatos and Owen Burnett—in one vehicle together. And there'd been no bother of having David Xanatos along for the ride; no having to leave his 'father' some place that wouldn't lead back to him, so Xanatos would be free to come up with the ransom money. Instead, the extra passengers had been the Xanatos family's nanny, and the nanny's own daughter. And even while driving to intercept the limousine, Thailog had found a way to work the extras into his plan, and derive even more profit from their presence.

His original plan had been to hold both Fox and Alexander Xanatos for ransom, giving David Xanatos a week to come up with one hundred million dollars and the head of a gargoyle, then kill them both as soon as the ransom had been paid.. But now that he had a nanny to take care of the baby, he had a new plan. Instead of killing the woman and baby after receiving his money, he'd let Fox go, gassing her unconscious before dropping her off in some public place that was momentarily deserted. Then he'd tell David Xanatos that the first hundred million had bought his wife's safe return, but he'd have to come up with another hundred million in order to see his son again.

Not that he had any intention of letting the infant live, of course. _**He**_ was Xanatos' firstborn, the child of his mind, and no one else would ever be allowed to take his rightful place as heir to the Xanatos fortune. But if he kept the nanny alive and with the baby when Fox was released, then Xanatos would believe he did intend to keep the child alive and well until the ransom was paid. Xanatos would desperately believe that, and bankrupt his own corporation to come up with the rest of the money.

…And another gargoyle head, of course. He made a mental note to ask for another of those as well. Not that Thailog had any burning desire to mount a second gargoyle's head over his mantle, but since he'd asked for one in the first ransom call, he might as well be consistent. And really, his operations could only benefit from having fewer of Goliath's clan to deal with in the future.

He was quite hopeful that the first head Xanatos would offer up as ransom payment would be Goliath's own, but that wasn't strictly necessary for his purposes. Which were twofold, the first being to drive a deep wedge between Xanatos and Goliath's clan. He'd been quite annoyed to find out from news reports that Xanatos was now actively aiding the gargoyles, giving them shelter, no doubt in return for their aid in some business dealings that required discreet work in the shadows. It was never good when one's rivals decided to team up, instead of fighting each other and saving him the work. But having Xanatos sacrifice one or two of them in return for his wife and son, would surely put an end to whatever alliance they had. The second purpose, of course, was to make them think that the kidnapper was a Quarryman or some other character who hated gargoyles on principle, instead of a gargoyle himself. Not that Thailog ever really thought of himself as a gargoyle; instead, he thought of himself as a businessman who currently happened to turn to stone during the day.

Then once the second ransom was paid, Thailog would get out of the kidnapping business altogether. He already knew which part of Battery Park he would deliver the corpses of the nanny and the brat to, by a route that provided excellent cover for anonymous dropoffs; it would be for the best if no one ever found out he was behind all this. And at the thought of the chosen site, he firmly suppressed once more the idea of rigging a tree near the corpses with a remote camera. It would be delightful to see the billionaire's face when the police called him to the scene, but if anyone found the camera before he could retrieve it, and had the bright idea of tracing the remote signals back to his lair… no, the payoff wasn't worth the risk.

He hadn't quite decided how to dispose of the nanny's daughter yet. He wasn't one to waste resources, and simply killing her with her mother and the Xanatos baby seemed a bit wasteful. Surely there was a way to make money off of her, with a little effort.

One of the men he'd killed while moving from apartment to apartment had been a pedophile; Thailog had found quite the collection stashed under the bed, and chuckled over his find before throwing the photos and printouts away. He had no doubt there was a pedophile ring operating somewhere in the city; if he could contact them and let them know he had a little girl for sale, to use as they pleased, surely she'd net him a few thousand dollars more.

But that could wait for another night. Tonight he had more important work to do, and it was time he returned to it. Setting his drink aside, Thailog cracked his knuckles and grinned in anticipation.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

By the time the gargoyles had arrived at the castle, all the supplies Brooklyn had earlier suggested that Xanatos obtain for them were there. Lexington and Rebecca started ripping open packages while several other gargoyles accepted and passed around a series of pictures, and items of clothing. Pictures of the missing people, taken down from the walls or printed out from security camera images stored in the computer system. And items of clothing that had been recently worn and not washed yet; a rice-cereal-stained onesie from Alexander's laundry hamper, pajamas that Bethany had worn the night before, her mother Anne's nightgown, one of Fox's brassieres, an undershirt that belonged to Owen. All the items were grimly sniffed so the New Orleans gargoyles would know the kidnap victims' scents, and the photos were intensely scrutinized.

While the others were busy, Brooklyn asked Xanatos if there'd been any developments in the case since their last phone conversation. Xanatos told them about the team of FBI agents, now numbering six, that were operating out of a room converted to office space in the castle's lowest level. Xanatos had not informed the agents of the gargoyles' return to the castle, and Brooklyn decided that for the moment that was a good thing. They didn't know how the agents personally felt about gargoyles, and trying to work with someone who considered you a monster or dangerous beast was usually more trouble than it was worth. "Is the agents' room wired for sound and video, so we can learn what they learn?" Brooklyn asked, remembering how the castle's dungeon on the same level had been wired for monitoring their prisoner, Broadway's would-be assassin.

Xanatos nodded. "And the phone line for that room can be monitored as well, all from the internal security room. Though I don't have the equipment installed here for tapping into their cell phones."

"So we'll work with what we can get," Brooklyn said decisively. "Martha, that'll be your task. You watch and listen in on everything they do and say, and report to us everysolid lead they uncover. We'll probably be able to act on those leads faster than they can." Monitoring the FBI would give Martha, a definite non-combatant, something to do so she could feel useful… and might actually be very useful, if the agents uncovered any real leads.

Martha nodded somberly, while Broadway looked fretful; probably wondering if he was going to be given some other job that would keep him in the castle. But Brooklyn had already decided that even with his crippled wing, Broadway was too valuable to keep sidelined; of the fifteen gargoyles currently in New York, only three of them were really familiar with the city's streets and landmarks. Broadway would be needed to lead one of the search parties, even if he slowed them down somewhat. So Brooklyn continued, "Now let's do something about the ransom demands."

"Could you actually come up with a hundred million dollars?" Rebecca asked Xanatos curiously.

"If necessary, yes. But one thing every rich man learns is to never actually give in to ransom demands; it only encourages other kidnapping attempts," Xanatos said grimly.

"You can pay the Danegeld, but it won't get rid of the Danes," Brooklyn agreed; that had been common wisdom in the age he'd grown up in. "But one thing those Danish Vikings never demanded of Castle Wyvern was a gargoyle's head on a platter."

"A _**WHAT?!**_" as every other gargoyle in the room stared wide-eyed at Brooklyn, then at Xanatos, then back at Brooklyn again with eyes narrowing. "You didn't mention that little detail to us before," Adam said through clenched teeth.

"Didn't figure I needed to," Brooklyn lied, knowing well that he'd avoided saying so only to put off their current level of upset as long as possible. Especially since he'd already decided how to deal with it. "Because it's a detail we can just take care of, here and now."

"And just how do you propose to do that?" Adam asked very carefully, his wings flaring while a few of his clan members flexed their talons.

"Like this," as Brooklyn walked over to a shelf not far from Hudson's easy chair. And came back cradling in his arms a stone head that looked just like Hudson's, down to the last facial ridge. "Hudson might be annoyed at losing his souvenir, but he'll agree it's for a good cause."

"Oh yeah; I'd nearly forgotten about that!" Broadway grinned.

"How did you get that? What's it a souvenir of?" Martha asked curiously.

"Long story, for another time. Anyway, Xanatos, there's got to be a silver platter somewhere in this castle; find one, and you can set this out in a public place sometime after sunrise. It should make the kidnappers think you're giving in to their demands, so they'll get more complacent, and hopefully easier for us to smoke out."

"Thank you," Xanatos said almost humbly as he accepted the stone head. Just before the intercom buzzed, and the front desk security guard announced that Detective Maza had just entered the building and was on her way up to the castle.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"I've got names and last known addresses, and other locations," Elisa announced as she walked into the room, brandishing a sheaf of computer printouts. "Xanatos, you got everything else?"

Xanatos pointed to a nearby table, on which rested two crates stenciled with what looked like military designations, and several smaller boxes with the names of various electronics stores on them; boxes that Lexington and Rebecca were already ripping open, installing batteries into the enclosed devices and fiddling with settings. "The last box arrived by special courier an hour ago. Right now they're activating the dozen GPS locators, and the two dozen two-way radios. I was assured the radios are powerful enough to reach across Manhattan; they're designed to operate in pairs, but they can all be tuned to a common frequency."

"Two frequency settings," Lexington said without looking up from the work he was doing on a radio with a jeweler's screwdriver. "One we'll use for general broadcast to all teams, and for Martha to pass along any clues she gets from listening in on the FBI. The other will be left for communicating between pairs, to cut down on interfering chatter from other teams."

"Let's see those lists, Elisa," Brooklyn said as he held his hand out. "Xanatos already gave us some information we can use, but we'll need yours too if we're going to pull off tonight's operation."

Elisa eyed him curiously as he handed over the lists. "And that would be…?"

"A plan we came up with on our way up here. I hadn't told everyone about the ransom demand including a gargoyle's head—which we've already taken care of, by the way; remember Hudson's souvenir?" as Brooklyn pointed to the stone head lying on a table nearby. At the sight of the head, Elisa let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She silently blessed Hudson's occasional liking for souvenirs, and vowed that when Hudson returned from Avalon, she would have an official 'Celebrity Hockey' jersey gift-wrapped and ready for him. Then she refocused, because Brooklyn was still talking: "Anyway, I _had_ told them that I suspect the Quarrymen are behind this."

"Or Tony Dracon," Elisa instantly responded. "Remember, he's been thwarted by the clan often enough that he's already got a bounty out for a gargoyle's head."

"And if what we do tonight doesn't help get our people back, we'll go after his gang next. But here's what we have planned…"

_**Next: Quarry**_


	3. Quarry

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**10.3: QUARRY**

The two Quarrymen had been in the air for nearly two hours already, slowly patrolling their assigned area; looking high and low for gargoyles, while watching each other's backs. They'd been patrolling together on hovercycles for over a month now…which meant they'd lasted longer at this duty than nearly anyone else.

Stanford and Copeland were acutely aware of how dangerous their duties were, and for more reasons than just the all-encompassing waivers they'd signed, absolving the Quarrymen from liability for any injury or fatality, before undergoing training. So far the Quarrymen had gone through seven hovercycles, and nearly as many riders. Two cycles had been wrecked in training by hotshot idiots, before Mr. Grimm's trainers had whipped up a simulator program and forbidden anyone to even sit on a real hovercycle until after logging 50 hours in the simulator. The rest had been wrecked in the line of duty, hunting and fighting gargoyles.

At the family holiday party last weekend, Stanford had gotten into an argument with his brother-in-law, who'd said flat-out that he was crazy to keep riding a hovercycle for the Quarrymen, after all those fatalities and everything else that had been reported in the newspapers. "_**Why**_ do you keep risking your damnfool neck like that?"

"If not me, then who?" Stanford had quoted, then continued, "Seriously, who else is going to do it? It's been _three months_ since we found out about the gargoyles preying on our city, and all the mayor's been able to do is create a 'Gargoyles Task Force' that's nothing but a bad joke; the cops haven't brought down a single gargoyle yet! And there've been, cripes, I don't know how many letters and phone calls to the governor by everybody from the mayor on down, but the governor _still_ hasn't called in the Army to exterminate them, or even the National Guard! This is just what the Second Amendment is for; when the government can't or won't protect us, it's up to us to defend ourselves and our neighbors. But even the citizens licensed to carry weapons can't do more than hope their alarm systems wake them up so they can squeeze off a shot at the gargoyles breaking in through their windows, before the monsters get to their kids. The Quarrymen do what they have to do, to take out the gargoyles _before_ they get into people's homes."

That had sounded noble enough that Stanford hadn't needed to mention the other reason he flew a hovercycle; that while most members of the Quarrymen were unpaid volunteers, those who were selected and trained to be active patrolling members got paid for their patrol hours, and hovercycle riders got paid three times more than anyone else did. He made more money three nights a week hunting for gargoyles, than he did from two weeks of working his regular job.

Not being an idiot, Stanford had taken some of the money he'd been paid and put a limited-term life insurance policy on himself, for $500,000. If he did end up getting killed by the monsters he was hunting, his family would be taken care of financially, at least.

And for the last hour or so, he'd been having the bad feeling that his wife would be cashing in that policy soon. He couldn't say why he had that feeling; so far tonight had been less active than most. Other patrol nights, they'd been chasing reports phoned in about gargoyles only to come upon empty streets, skies and perches, time and time again. Tonight, not a single false report so far. Everything was quiet… too quiet…

His radio headset crackled in his ear. Copeland called to ask, "Anything? Seen any gravel deposits, even?"

"Negative," he said tersely.

"…Don't suppose they up and went south for the winter?"

Stanford snorted. "We should be so lucky."

"Two-hour mark. Break?" Copeland asked.

Stanford considered it. Patrols were allowed and even encouraged to take a five-minute break every hour; to dismount from the hovercycles, drink some coffee, and stretch their legs and other joints that were apt to stiffen from the cold. As increasingly tense as he was feeling, he didn't want to take a break right now… but that probably meant he really needed one. Tension tired a man out faster, and there were still two hours left on their patrol. "Break. On the corner rooftop, one o'clock low."

They both headed for the rooftop, Copeland arriving first; he'd set his hovercycle to idle, dismounted and already gotten his coffee thermos out by the time Stanford settled down, facing his hovercycle in the other direction to keep watch for anything approaching from behind. Copeland peeled his hood back from his face, to give him a raised eyebrow. "Bad feeling?"

"Yup. You?" as Stanford set his cycle to idle, stepped off and peeled his hood back as well.

"Nope; not till now, anyway. What is it?" as Copeland poured them both coffee.

Stanford shook his head in frustration, unable to explain it. "Just… gut instinct. It's too quiet tonight; something's going to break soon."

"Calm before the storm," Copeland mused, then took a drink of his coffee before holding out a paper sack. "So you should get some extra fuel in you before we head up again. Here, take some; my Susie's gone overboard on the holiday baking again, and we've got ginger snaps galore."

Almost despite himself, Stanford smiled; ginger snaps were his favorite. "Tell her thanks for me," he said as he took off a glove, then reached into the proffered sack to snag some cookies.

…Much later, Stanford decided in retrospect that he shouldn't have taken his eyes off the sky for anything, even ginger snaps.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

The gargoyles had been tracking those hovercycles from on high for the past ten minutes, waiting for them to take a break. And it had taken less than twenty minutes to find the two hovercycles in all of Manhattan, thanks to the information they'd been given by Xanatos.

The people driving the hologram-projecting vans that Xanatos had deployed throughout Manhattan for the last month, had done more than they'd been hired for. First, on their own initiative and with some other equipment on loan from R&D, they'd managed to tap into the Quarrymen's radio communication network, so they could be sure their holograms were shut off and their vans well away before any Quarrymen could arrive and spot them. And while monitoring the communications, they'd determined the patterns to the Quarrymen's patrols, both in the vans and on the hovercycles. Which teams patrolled which area of the city, what call signs they used on their radio channels, when they changed shifts, and how often they took breaks while on patrol.

The leader of the projection team had given their compiled information to Xanatos last week, and earned a hefty Christmas bonus for his people as a result. As he watched the two Quarrymen land their hovercycles on a rooftop and dismount, Brooklyn decided that those projection team people would each get a personal thank-you note from the clan as well.

"Now," he hissed to the black form gliding off to his left, but she was already diving down. Rebecca, sprayed head to toe with black body paint to keep humans from spotting her golden hide against the night sky, was being impulsive again. Brooklyn bit back a curse as he folded his wings, spilling air to follow her down in a steep dive, while vowing to have a hard talk with her later; warriors who 'jumped the gun' in a battle were apt to find themselves looking right down the barrel! But that was for later; right now, they had only seconds to accomplish their mission.

They dove with no sound other than the wind shrieking past their wings; none of the traditional roaring that warriors did in combat, to frighten their foes. For this, speed and silence were essential.

The wind ripped away the headset he'd been wearing, to monitor the Quarrymen's radio communications. Then it ripped off the black bandana Brooklyn had tied over his white mane to conceal it, but he ignored that loss as well. Down 100 feet, then 200… Their quarry, the Quarrymen, still hadn't looked up; they were focused on a small paper bag that one of them was holding out. Down, down—_**pull out!**_ Just as the one with his hand in the bag looked up (probably alerted by the sound of the wind whistling past them), Brooklyn snapped his wings out, grimly accepting the pain of straining joints as he braked hard and changed his glide plane from a steep dive to a nearly horizontal swoop, straight at their targets. _**Hit 'em!**_ Before the Quarrymen could do more than shout in alarm, he and Rebecca hit them together, tackling them away from their hovercycles and sending them sprawling nearly halfway across the roof.

_Owwww. Stone sleep, please. Right away_, Brooklyn's wings, back and shoulders pleaded, but he ignored the pain as he got up from where he'd landed atop the Quarryman and cocked a fist to punch out his opponent. And lowered it, after realizing that the impact of collision had already knocked the man out cold. He looked over to his left, where Rebecca and her opponent had landed. Either that other guy was a whole lot tougher, or Rebecca had braked too hard when pulling out of the dive and hit with insufficient impact, because her guy was still awake and drawing breath to shout again—_wham!_—no, make that _had been_ awake. He was definitely out cold now, and Rebecca was growling over him, her eyes glimmering red and her fist cocked to hit him again.

"That's _enough_, Rebecca," Brooklyn said sharply before she could strike again. "Remember, these guys have been conned by Jon Castaway into thinking _we're_ the bad guys. Let's not prove him right by hitting someone already down."

"Pardon me if I happen to take _getting_ _**shot**_ kinda personally," Rebecca snarled without looking at him. Only then did Brooklyn remember what he'd once been told; that the night before she'd met them, while searching for the Manhattan Clan, Rebecca had been shot and nearly killed by a hovercycle-mounted Quarryman. But she backed off as ordered, while Brooklyn radioed for the other gargoyles perched or gliding high out of sight to come on down.

As everyone gathered on the rooftop, the Quarrymen were quickly and efficiently stripped down to their underwear, and their wrists secured behind them with large zip-ties. Then they were just as quickly rolled up inside thick blankets that had been brought from the castle, so only their heads were showing. "Okay, Broadway; show Erasmus and Lucy a good office building to dump them in," Brooklyn said as Lucy and Erasmus each hefted a blanket-rolled man in their arms, and walked to the edge of the roof. Snagging the Quarrymen's paper bag from where it had fallen, Broadway joined them and the three launched off the roof together, heading for the business district nearby.

The plan was to find a business that worked regular office hours, and didn't employ a night watchman to make regular rounds. It wouldn't be hard; there were plenty of offices and buildings that still just locked their doors and windows at night. And some of them didn't even lock all the windows that were off the ground floor; easy access indeed for a gargoyle who'd found some spare change while on patrol and was looking to use a vending machine. Broadway could probably list a dozen such businesses and office buildings, so he was leading Lucy and Erasmus to where they could stash the two Quarrymen inside an office for the rest of the night.

Out of the weather and rolled up in the blankets, the Quarrymen would be in no danger of freezing to death. But with their hands tied behind them they wouldn't be able to get loose of the blankets on their own, let alone call anyone and let them know what had happened. The two men would surely be discovered and freed when business hours began the next morning, but by that time it would be far too late to do any good—or harm.

They were in better luck than they'd dared hope for; one of the two Quarrymen they'd taken out was on the stocky side. Adam's body was wiry, but he needed the extra room in the torso and legs to hide his caped wings and his tail. There was no hope of him fitting his feet into the boots that went with the uniform, but the thick black wool socks they'd brought along would hopefully serve to disguise gargoyle feet from a casual glance at a distance.

Lexington was supposed to be putting on the other uniform, but instead he was sitting on one of the hovercycles, figuring out the controls. Rebecca was gleefully sitting on the other, and had already figured out how to start it hovering six inches off the rooftop. "Very nice, Rebecca," Brooklyn said firmly. "Now get off there and show Adam how to fly it." She pouted at him but obediently landed it again while Brooklyn said pointedly, "Lex, your outfit's waiting for you…"

"Give me a little more time, okay?" Lexington said as his hovercycle lifted off the rooftop as well. "I want to figure out everything this baby can do, _before_ I have to shove my wing-struts down and in so far that I can't just fly off it if I need to."

"Good point. Okay, take her once around the block, then get back here and get in costume. Adam, you want to do the same?" Brooklyn asked.

Adam strode over to look at the controls on the other cycle, and said with confidence, "Throttle, clutch, gas… they based the controls on motorcycle controls, and I used to ride those all the time when I was younger. Give me two minutes on 'er, and I'll be ready to cruise the strip!"

"Motorcycle controls, eh?" Now Brooklyn had to fight down the urge to try out a hovercycle for himself. They had a few minutes of leeway, but there just wasn't time for everyone who was interested to have joyrides before accomplishing their mission. Still… He announced with a grin, "Slight change of plans; after this is over, instead of trashing both hovercycles, we'll take one back to the castle if we can." Hey, Hudson wasn't the only one who could collect souvenirs…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

While gliding and munching on the ginger snaps he'd found, Broadway glanced over his shoulder towards the castle, wondering how Martha was doing. He knew it was kind-of silly to be wondering already, when he'd only left her side a half-hour ago and the castle was as safe as Xanatos could make it. But this was the first time they'd been more than a few wingspans apart since their wedding.

He'd learned a lot about Martha during the weeks when they'd just been friends working in the kitchen together; back when he'd been too thick-headed or stubborn to realize he was falling in love with her. He'd learned her moods, her favorite dishes, her hobbies outside the kitchen, and how she related with her rookery kin and several other members of her clan. But once they'd become mates, he'd learned even more about her, such as where she was ticklish… and what _really_ aroused her…

An abrupt cross-breeze startled him out of his reverie—which was probably a good thing, but trying to compensate for the change in air currents made him bobble in the air like a hatchling still learning his wings. Dammit, he used to be able to handle cross-breezes like that with ease! But his left wing just didn't do what he wanted it to all the time; he had to really concentrate and work at it to glide smoothly.

He glanced over at Erasmus and Lucy, his face burning in embarrassment, to see if they'd noticed his midair stumble. But they were preoccupied with their blanket-wrapped burdens; one of the Quarrymen had just awakened. And now that he was awake, he was babbling with fear, begging for the gargoyles to not kill him and his friend.

"Oh, _hush_," Lucy said crossly to the man squirming in her arms. "You're supposed to be intelligent, so use your brain for a moment and _think_! If we had intended to kill you, you would be dead already!"

"Maybe he thinks we're just saving him for later; that we sacrifice humans to the Great Dragon, or something," Erasmus suggested, sounding amused.

Lucy complained, "And now he's squirming even harder! Thanks _so much_ for your suggestion, dear... Listen, human; we don't do sacrifices either. But if you don't stop squirming _right now_, I might lose my grip on you, and it's a long way down to the street… That's better. Broadway, how much further to that office building?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Benner, one of the men on watch at the East Village warehouse that the Quarrymen had turned into their base of operations, called his partner excitedly. "Did you hear that?!"

"Hear what?" his partner Wilson responded, looking up from his crossword puzzle.

"On the radio just now! HV3 and 4 are on their way back; they bagged a couple of gargoyles!"

The crossword was tossed aside as Wilson jumped to his feet. "Really? Hot damn, it's about time we got some of those bastards! Are they bringing back the heads or something?"

"I think so; their signal was staticky as hell, but I could make out 'surprised two gargoyles' and 'nailed', and 'bringing back trophies'! Go open the doors for them, while I tell the others!"

Wilson went to open the doors, while Benner excitedly went to inform everyone else still in their headquarters so late at night.

The warehouse's giant double doors were rolled open, and by the time everyone else in the building had gathered at the open doors, they could hear the subdued roar of the hovercycles' engines, faint but coming closer.

"Did anyone call Castaway yet?" Wilson asked, while keeping his eyes on the night sky.

"Not yet," Martinez, their lieutenant on duty, responded. "I want to find out first if this is great news, or _really_ great news! Remember the primary targets, that giant purple male with the brown mane, and the blue female with the red mane? They're the Alphas of the gargoyle pack! When we call Castaway, first thing he'll ask is if we nailed one of them."

"Hey, that's right; did anyone grab that sword in his office, or a meat cleaver or something?" Benner asked. "He said with the blue female especially, we should behead her to make _sure_ she's dead."

"Not to worry; Copeland always packs a meat cleaver in his saddlebag," Martinez said reassuringly. And his voice rose in excitement a moment later as he said, "I see them!"

A moment later, both hovercycles came into view gliding down the street, and everyone let out a cheer when they came near; each Quarryman rider had strapped to the front of his hovercycle, the corpse of a gargoyle! One of the gargoyles was a brick red male with a big beak and a mane that looked like it might be white, under all the blood matting it. The other was deep purple under all the blood running down its arms and legs, and hairless.

"The purple one! Hot damn, we hit the jackpot!" someone in the crowd whooped as the cycles glided closer.

Another Quarryman said more judiciously, "Nope; that one's too dark and too skinny, and he's got no hair either. But still, score two for our side!" And everyone cheered again while clearing a path for the hovercycles, as they glided past into the warehouse.

And just as the hovercycles set down on the concrete behind the crowd—

And just as a few of them wondered why Stanford and Copeland were still wearing their hoods, and not saying anything—

Both of the limp, lifeless gargoyle corpses came to life again. Still strapped to the cycles, the brick-red one and the deep purple one reared up simultaneously, threw some small things clutched in their hands at the crowd, then flopped back down and covered their ears while the Quarrymen on the hoverycles did the same—

And the world exploded in white.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Covering his ears had helped a little, but those stun grenades were **LOUD!** Brooklyn's ears were ringing as he quickly unhooked the bungee cords that had been keeping him on the hovercycle. He slipped down to the floor and staggered to his feet, just as Etienne was doing; the New Orleans gargoyle also looked a bit dazed, but he was still grinning from ear to ear.

Adam and Lexington had already hopped off the hovercycles and started running deeper into the warehouse, as according to the plan. They still wore their hoods in order to confuse any Quarrymen who might have missed the blast, but the small white X's applied low on their backs with masking tape marked who they were to the gargoyles.

The massive flash of light from inside the warehouse had been their cue; everyone else in the raiding party came swooping in through the still-open warehouse doors, punching out the Quarrymen who were either still standing or already staggering back to their feet after the stun grenade had gone off (only two out of eight), and quickly applying zip-ties to the wrists and ankles of the Quarrymen on the ground.

Less than thirty seconds after the stun grenades had gone off, all the Quarrymen who'd been in the crowd were on the ground and out of action. Once their opponents were secured, the gargoyles quickly fanned out throughout the warehouse, searching for (a) their missing people and (b) other Quarrymen that hadn't been in the gathered crowd. Elisa had said they probably wouldn't find the kidnap victims being held right at the Quarrymen's own headquarters, that Jon Canmore/Castaway wouldn't be that stupid, but they still had to make sure.

Brooklyn went up a flight of stairs to find what must have been the Quarrymen's head office, where Lexington, his hood and uniform sweater already stripped off, was busily tapping on the keyboard of a computer. Adam was rifling through the shelves and desk drawers, looking for more possible clues. After grabbing the discarded hood to wipe away some of the fake blood that was dripping down from his mane into his face, Brooklyn asked, "Anything, Lex?" Then louder, realizing that Lexington's ears were probably ringing too, "_Found anything, Lex_?"

"Not yet," Brooklyn heard Lexington say faintly through the ringing in his own ears. "Give me a few more minutes."

"_Fifteen minutes, tops; then we just grab the whole computer and get ready to go_!" Brooklyn reminded him, before joining Adam in tossing the office, searching for anything that might be a clue as to where the women and children were being held. Elisa had said that they should especially look for receipts for hotel rooms or other room rentals, or notes about locations elsewhere in the city.

Adam waved a three-ring binder in front of his beak; the page he held open listed half a dozen locations in Manhattan. Brooklyn studied the addresses for a second, placing them on the map of Manhattan he carried in his head, then recognized them. He shook his head and told Adam loudly, "_Old perches we used sometimes_!" Places that one or more clan members had slept when they hadn't gotten back to the clocktower before dawn, for one reason or another. Perches they'd better avoid in the future; it gave him chills from the wing-joints clear down to his tail-tip, to realize how closely they'd been studied by people who wanted to destroy them.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

In the main part of the warehouse, the rest of the raiding/searching party assembled, all of them shaking their heads. They hadn't found any sign that the missing women and children were being held there.

"Time to ask some questions," Broadway declared, looking over at the group of Quarrymen lying helpless on the ground, while running through his mind everything he'd learned about interrogation, from watching movies and from listening to Matt and Elisa. One of the best techniques was 'good cop / bad cop', but that probably wouldn't work too well for them; these guys would never believe a gargoyle saying he sympathized with them. So, no 'good cop'; they'd have to do 'bad cop' all the way.

A thought that just this once, Broadway had no problem with. Someone had taken Bethany and Alexander, a little girl and a baby who could barely crawl; two helpless innocents! And while Fox and Owen could handle themselves in a fight, Anne was almost as helpless as her daughter. When he found whoever had kidnapped them, he intended to do some serious damage! And if these guys had _anything at all_ to do with the kidnapping…

"You have fun with them; I'm gonna have me some fun with their equipment," Etienne said, grinning while gesturing at the hovercycles, the helicopter in the back of the warehouse and the racks of equipment against the walls.

Broadway nodded to Etienne, then walked over to where the Quarrymen were lying; those who were conscious were staring wide-eyed at the gargoyles. "Wh-what are you going to do with us?" one of them asked with a quaver in his voice.

Broadway grabbed that one by the front of his uniform and lifted him partway off the ground, bringing the man closer to get a good look at his fangs as he said simply, "I'm hungry."

"_**NO!**_ _**Oh God, noooooo!**_" the man wailed as Broadway dragged him off, looking for an empty room or otherwise secluded spot. The other gargoyles, helping Etienne in rounding up the Quarrymen's equipment, gave him and his captive either grim smiles or wicked grins as he passed.

He found a small room built into the side of the warehouse and dragged the man inside, wrinkling his nose at the odor coming from his captive; the man had pissed his pants in sheer terror. And was still begging and pleading, until Broadway gave him a light slap and growled, "Stop that! I'm not going to eat you."

"Y-you're not?" as the man stared at him wide-eyed.

"No! Gargoyles don't eat people, no matter what your leader told you." Broadway paused before adding ominously, "But that depends on whether or not we consider you _**people**_."

"Huh?"

"Yup. Gargoyles are _people_, but we're still not so sure about some of you humans. You see, _**people**_ live by rules. _**People**_ try to get along with each other. _**People**_ don't prey on their own kind. And _**people**_ especially don't _**kidnap innocent little children**_!" Broadway finished his little improvisation, then went to the script that Brooklyn and Adam had hammered out earlier:

"We're looking for two children, their mothers and another man; humans who are under the protection of the gargoyle clan. People who were _kidnapped_ earlier tonight! Kidnapped, and we think _your gang_ had something to do with it. Right now, we're _asking nicely_ if you know where they are. But if we don't get our friends back safe and sound, and very soon…" Broadway showed his fangs again as he snarled, "_**we stop asking nicely**_**.**"

"I swear to God, I don't know anything about any kidnapped people!" the Quarryman babbled. "I'd never kidnap anyone!"

"But would you just stand by and say nothing if one of your buddies did the dirty deed?" Broadway still showed his fangs. "Whoever kidnapped our friends is going to _**pay**_ for it. And anyone who knows about the kidnapping but says nothing… You humans call it 'accessory after the fact'. We gargoyles call it 'just as guilty'. Guess how we treat people who are just as guilty as kidnappers?" Broadway hadn't thought it possible for the Quarryman to pale any further, but now the human went white as milk. He finished with, "So think carefully about everything you've seen and heard lately. Think _really_ carefully…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

The fifteen minutes were up; Lexington hit a key and made some printouts from the computer, then shut it down and started unhooking its cables. Adam swept the desk's rolodex, notebooks and everything else with information on it into a box, for taking with them when they left. After helping Adam load up everything that might possibly contain a clue, Brooklyn stepped out of the office and gestured for Cassius to come over. "How's it going out there?"

"No sign of the missing people in here, and Broadway's questioned one guy so far, but with no results that he's told us of," Cassius said with a wave towards where Broadway was currently dragging off another Quarryman. "Martin's working on another one as we speak. We're done collecting their equipment; how about Lucretia and I take a couple of them for questioning?"

"If you both remember the script, go for it," Brooklyn told him. "The sooner we're done here, the better."

So Lucretia and Cassius each dragged off a terrified Quarryman for questioning, while Adam joined Lexington at the Quarrymen's radio setup. It was time for the next phase of their operation. No one had needed to state out loud that tonight's mission was to 'kill two birds with one stone', as the humans liked to say. If they were going to attack the Quarrymen head-on instead of just avoiding them, they might as well do everything they could to cripple the organization.

Using the frequencies and call signs that Xanatos' people had learned for them, Adam called the other hovercycle team and the two van teams still out patrolling, back to base with the message that their leader was in the warehouse and had an announcement to make to everyone. "Is there a helicopter team out too?" Brooklyn whispered.

"Not according to the patrol roster I found," Lexington whispered back, looking at where Adam was sitting with the headset and microphone. "When I dug into their personnel database, I found only one man left who had helicopter pilot qualifications; maybe it's his night off."

"And did the database have any way of distinguishing who's an upper-ranking member in their organization?" But even as Brooklyn asked, Lexington flourished for him a printout titled 'Captains and Lieutenants,' complete with names and addresses. "Good job."

"Got one of 'Squad Leaders,' too," Lexington said gleefully. "Nice of them to be so well organized for us, huh?"

"Just this once, yeah. When we're done here, we'll hit the captains and lieutenants first, then work our way down." The Quarrymen had hundreds of people in their ranks, but Matt had passed on to them through Elisa the theory that the kidnapping had been accomplished by someone high-ranked in the organization; someone who'd proven themselves capable and responsible enough to pull off a complex and risky job, not just any rank-and-file member.

Brooklyn scanned the short list of captains and lieutenants, and was grimly pleased to see that Jon Castaway's name was on that list as Captain, along with an address and phone number. Xanatos had told them that Jon Canmore/Castaway was known to change his address on a frequent basis; probably a habit from his Hunter days. But he'd let his own people know how to get hold of him, wouldn't he?

_You and me are gonna have a long talk, madman_, he promised silently. _You attacked Goliath and Elisa while they were courting. Your people zapped Lexington, and would have killed him if I hadn't been there to catch him._ _They even tried to kill Hudson—in a hospital full of sick humans, yet! Then they crippled Broadway; damn near took the sky away from him forever._ _And worst of all, they killed Brentwood, a gargoyle who was just a hatchling inside, and all on your orders. You've caused enough misery for the clan; time to put a stop to you for good_…

Eventually all the Quarrymen already in the warehouse were questioned, but none of them knew anything about the kidnapping. Their mouths were taped shut and they were stashed in the main office upstairs, out of the way while the gargoyles waited to give the returning Quarrymen a warm welcome indeed.

Counting Castaway, there were eight men on the list of captains and lieutenants, including the one called Martinez that had been on duty. That left seven to find and question. While waiting for the patrols to arrive, Brooklyn showed everyone the list and the addresses, and they used the GPS locators they'd been given to determine where those addresses were in relation to the warehouse. Assignments were handed out; seven teams of two gargoyles each, to take on the seven men left on the list of captains and lieutenants. If their missing people weren't at any of those locations and none of those Quarrymen knew anything, they'd move on to the twenty squad leaders, as many as they could find in the time they had left before dawn. Brooklyn told the assembled teams, "We'll try to hit the lieutenants all at nearly the same time, so no one has a chance to call and warn the others."

"And after we're done with them… zip-tie and tape mouths shut?" Martin asked.

Brooklyn shook his head. "No. Because if they have family with them, we'd have to do it to every family member, or they'd be freed immediately afterwards. And if they don't have family with them… there was a case not six months ago, of a man who'd been surprised by burglars in his own apartment. They knocked him out and tied him up while they robbed the place. But they didn't untie him when they left… and by the time the landlord came by for the rent five days later, the poor bastard had died of thirst, still tied up in his kitchen. So we just get our hands on 'em, find out what they know, and get out fast. Oh, and smash their phones before leaving; that'll slow them down a little when it comes to alerting the other Quarrymen."

Isabel, who had naturally been partnered with Brooklyn, gave her mate a raised eyebrow. "And is that really all we're going to do with Jon Castaway?"

Brooklyn snorted. "Not by a long shot. That man has a helluva lot to answer for… When we're done with him, we'll leave him gift-wrapped outside a police precinct, with instructions for the cops to check his fingerprints against those of the missing terrorist who bombed the 23rd Precinct. Can't leave him outside the 23rd, because we don't want him catching sight of Elisa. But any other precinct will do; cops _**really**_ don't like bombers."

Etienne and Lexington had found that the electrified net-mortars were easy to load and operate, and begged Brooklyn for the chance to use them against the incoming Quarrymen. But Brooklyn said no to that as well; "Too apt to be lethal. And we don't know what will happen if one of the hovercycles gets zapped by electricity; no risking explosions until we're ready for them. We'll have to take them out the old-fashioned way…"

The other team of hovercycle riders were first to arrive at the warehouse. They found the doors open and what appeared to be two Quarrymen waiting just inside, waving excitedly for them to come in. So they came in, hovering about six feet of the floor… and were nailed as soon as they cleared the doorway. Lucy and Martin had been waiting in the rafters; they jumped down on the riders, surprising and overpowering them in seconds, and hitting the controls that Lexington had told them would set the hovercraft to idling gently down to the ground.

As soon as the Quarrymen had been unstrapped, yanked off their seats and tied up, the gargoyles stopped being gentle with the hovercycles. They all grabbed Quarryhammers and started gleefully pounding away, on the two that had just arrived and on one of the vehicles they'd brought with them, in their Trojan Horse gambit. Even without charging them up, the Quarryhammers did a lot of damage; in less than thirty seconds, three hovercyles were reduced to piles of scrap and leaking fuel.

"Hold it!" Robert suddenly snapped, whipping his head towards the still-open doors. Everyone froze, and in that sudden silence they heard the sound of screeching tires and an engine revving as someone raced away. They ran out the doorway, just in time to see the taillights of a van as it turned the nearest corner.

"Dammit!" Brooklyn just knew in his guts that the van had been a Quarryvan, returning earlier than expected. And that the driver had seen what they were doing, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Running away, and probably looking for a phone to call their buddies… "Party's over, folks; time to blow this place!"

And they did. Eight gargoyles stampeded into the warehouse office and grabbed the Quarrymen who'd been left tied up there, carrying them swiftly out of the warehouse. The two who'd just arrived were also grabbed and carried out. Erasmus, in the lead, opened the door of a building across the street by kicking it in with one blow from his cloven hoof.

Having already strapped the computer and the box of office materials to the back of the remaining hovercycle, Lexington hopped onto the vehicle and rode it out and up, to park it on a rooftop several blocks away. Everyone else picked up the Quarryhammers that had been used on the hovercycles and tossed them inside the helicopter, where they'd already stowed the other Quarryhammers and all the net-mortars that had been in the warehouse. Then Etienne set the timer on the detonator for the C-4, which he'd applied to the helicopter's gas tank.

Thirty seconds later, while the gargoyles were hurriedly stowing their captives in the building across the street, a massive explosion shook the warehouse. It was actually a series of explosions, one right after the other, but the concussive blasts were so close together that they could hardly be told apart. "_Dayumn_, those Quarryhammers must pack a helluva punch," Etienne said admiringly, as a hellish orange glow lit up the warehouse from within and massive columns of smoke came billowing out.

"No doubt," Brooklyn agreed, then told the captive Quarrymen as he removed the tape from over their mouths, "The fire department will be here soon; when they get here, just holler loudly enough and they'll find you. And tomorrow, start looking for other hobbies, got it? Remember, we _could_ have just killed you all tonight…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

After a quick rendezvous on the roof where Lexington had parked the hovercycle, they split up into seven teams for their assignments; to search the homes of six Quarrymen lieutenants and their leader for the kidnap victims, and shake them down for any information they might have about the kidnapping.

Broadway and Etienne went to an address in Flatiron.

Cassius and Lucretia followed their GPS to an address in Little Italy.

Lucy and Erasmus went looking for a specific apartment in Tribeca.

Lexington and Robert went the farthest north, to a house in Washington Heights.

Adam and Rebecca headed for an address in Carnegie Hill.

Martin and Cecelia went to a brownstone in the West Village.

And Brooklyn and Isabel went looking for a certain hotel in Morningside Heights, and a certain room on the fourth floor. The Quarrymen's database had listed that hotel room as the most recent place where Jon Castaway, their leader, rested his head.

The fastest way to Morningside Heights from the East Village area was directly across Central Park. As Brooklyn led Isabel over the park, he glanced down and saw his favorite spot in the Ramble; a small secluded glen surrounded by trees. Trees that had lost their green leafy glory to winter's chill touch, but the glen was still secluded, a nice spot for a couple looking for privacy.

The sight made him remember, just for a moment… Three nights ago, during his brief honeymoon with Isabel in New Orleans, Brooklyn had told her about that glen in the park. He hadn't told her about his old fantasies of coaxing Angela to join him in the glen for courting; instead, he'd told her how beautiful it was by midsummer moonlight, and how much more beautiful it would be with her standing in it, the moon shining down on her sleek fur. There with him, as he would gently nip at her and peel her clothes off till the moon shone on all her beauty. And as Brooklyn had whispered to Isabel, he'd also demonstrated…

_Brooklyn, you are such a horny bastard_, he berated himself harshly. _The kids and their mothers have been __**kidnapped**__, and you're thinking about __**sex?! **__Get your mind on what matters now!_

He worked his wings harder, to take full advantage of the air currents and get to Morningside Heights even faster, with Isabel gliding grimly alongside him.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

The park below them was so big, it could only be that Central Park that New York City was famous for; the park Brooklyn had told her about, during their honeymoon.

Isabel couldn't help occasionally glancing downwards as they glided over it, wondering where in the park was the beautiful romantic glen that Brooklyn had told her about. Then she scolded herself to get her mind back on business; they had a gargoyle-hating criminal to interrogate, and kidnap victims to find!

But it was harder than usual to get her mind back on track; almost as bad as if she had a new idea for a statue or other art brewing in the back of her head. She kept getting distracted by the realization that this was her home territory now, and this was her life from now on…

Only a week ago, she had been telling herself not to get too worked up at the thought of joining Brooklyn in his home protectorate as his mate. She'd figured that Yvette, her prettier and oh-so-likeable sister, would be getting a courting gift as soon as Brooklyn stopped feeling obliged to go out with all the females who were interested in him.

Isabel knew her faults; knew well that she frequently got too wrapped up in her artwork, and was usually lacking in the tact and patience departments. And she'd more-or-less accepted the idea that she'd never have a mate of her own, would have to make do with sharing a male with one of her sisters, just for the Breeding Moon… until Brooklyn came along and got her heart to thumping, so hard that she'd sometimes wondered if he could hear it. It still amazed her that he'd chosen her over Yvette, but she wasn't going to argue with him about it!

And after he'd chosen her to court, they'd had their wedding less than twenty-four hours later. So it wasn't until they were on their honeymoon, and Brooklyn had been telling her about all the places in New York that he wanted to take her to see and experience, that Isabel had realized that soon she'd be _**leaving Home**_. Leaving the estate and the territories she'd hunted in and patrolled over for all her life. Leaving her elders and most of her rookery kin behind…

Brooklyn had been utterly bewildered and dismayed when she'd suddenly burst into tears. Isabel had been pretty dismayed with herself, too. Izzy the blacksmith artist was supposed to be as tough and sharp as the metal she worked on; she hadn't cried in decades!

But she'd gotten herself back under control while Brooklyn had been anxiously telling her that it was just a vicious rumor, utterly untrue, and New York hot dogs didn't have cat meat in them at all, really! She'd dried her tears and reassured her mate, and since then, she'd forced herself to go from being apprehensive about leaving her familiar hunting grounds and patrol routes, to being excited about the prospect of living in and learning about a whole new protectorate.

This was a helluva crash course in learning, though. She would have preferred Brooklyn to show her the sights at a leisurely pace over the course of several nights, with plenty of time outs for necking and et cetera…

And no doubt Fox Xanatos and the others would have preferred not to be kidnapped, too, she thought wryly. They were clearing the edge of the park now; from what she remembered of the map she'd been shown, they should be coming up on Morningside Heights soon…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Broadway suspected that he and Etienne had been assigned to the Quarryman lieutenant who lived in the Flatiron neighborhood, and after that a squad leader who lived only three blocks away, because Flatiron was closest to the Quarrymen's base of operations in the East Village and Brooklyn didn't want Broadway to tire himself out going all over Manhattan. Which was kind-of insulting—yes, he had a problem with his left wing these nights, but didn't Brooklyn trust Broadway to know his own limits? But he hadn't been able to come up with a way of protesting at the time, without sounding like a real jerk.

He and Etienne reached their target's address in good time… and Broadway's heart lurched when he recognized the rooftop. Oh damn, he should _definitely_ have asked for a different assignment! He remembered exactly what had happened the last time he'd landed on that rooftop…

Landed there not by his own choice, but by Coldstone's. It was while he had been possessed by Coldstone, and Angela by Coldfire. After the two spirits that controlled their bodies had glided out to the Statue of Liberty to feel the wing beneath their borrowed wings, and after Brooklyn (actually the evil spirit housed inside him, Coldsteel) had slyly suggested that they should take full advantage of the fleshly bodies they were housed in, the pair had glided back towards the clan's clocktower home… but hadn't quite reached it before giving in to temptation.

Coldstone-in-him and Coldfire-in-Angela had landed right there on that rooftop, stripped off their host bodies' clothes and… and did just about everything mates could do with each other, short of actually putting penis into vagina. Coldstone had really wanted to do that too, but Coldfire had been concerned about their accidentally bonding their host bodies together; giving them bonding scents when the hosts weren't mated to each other. But there were lots of other pleasurable activities mates could do with each other, and the two spirits had done a lot of them… utterly unaware at the time that the people those bodies really belonged to, were helplessly all-too-aware of everything.

Afterwards, Broadway and Angela had managed to come to terms with what had been done with them and to them, and Broadway had tried to forget the whole thing. But that wasn't something a guy could ever forget… and whether he'd wanted to admit it or not, he'd learned a lot about pleasuring females that night, far more than he'd learned during the previous four decades of existence. Broadway had always been too embarrassed to go spying on older mated couples, like some of his rookery brothers had done back in the old clan, and other than at Goliath's bachelor party he'd never seen any human porn movies either. So if not for Coldstone and Coldfire, he'd have been utterly inexperienced and ignorant on his wedding night.

His and Martha's mating flight… had been too rough, too fast, over too soon. Oh, the flight had lasted long enough for him to get thoroughly aroused by the time he caught her, but… he could tell afterwards that it hadn't been much fun for her and had even hurt her a little, even if she'd sworn she was just fine. So he'd decided that for their next time, on the ground (actually in the back of the van driving them to the safe house; someone had thrown a lot of old cushions inside it while decorating it for the trip, and their driver Willie LeBeau had pointedly put on headphones playing jazz music before putting the van in gear) he'd use some of the things Coldstone had taught him about foreplay.

And those lessons had worked, really well! There hadn't been any doubt at all about Martha enjoying what he was doing, not when he'd had her eyes glowing like rubies while she begged him for more. He'd been pretty darn proud of himself, proud and in short order very satisfied indeed!

Yep, everything had been going just great… until afterwards, when Martha had breathlessly told him that he'd proved Ursula utterly wrong. Ursula had pulled Martha and Isabel aside just before the ceremony and warned them not to expect too much from their mates while on their honeymoons; that males usually had little clue on how to pleasure females and it would take a few weeks of patience and learning on both sides, very careful suggestions and coaching their mates, before they experienced true orgasms. "But what you just… what we… that was _definitely_ an orgasm! I thought I was going to die from sheer pleasure! You just knew what to do, knew what I wanted even before I did… it was incredible!" And soon afterwards, very hesitantly, she'd asked, "How… how did you learn all that? I mean, some of it you couldn't even have learned from human sex manuals, because they're not built like us… is it something they actually taught youngsters in the medieval times?"

"Uhhhh… not exactly." Broadway had wanted to change the subject, but his hesitation had gotten Martha even more curious. And he'd already learned over the past few weeks that when Martha was really curious about something, there was no stopping her from eventually ferreting out the truth. So he'd finally given in and told her about Coldstone and Coldfire, and _everything_ that had happened that night.

They'd reached the safe house by the time he'd finished telling her the story, and Martha had been very quiet and thoughtful as they'd stepped out of the van together and gone inside the house. Willie's wife Ruby and their son Toby had beaten them back to the house in their car, and had lit candles and done their best to make the attic a really romantic spot for a honeymoon. But Martha had said only a few words of thanks to them, still having that thoughtful look on her face.

It was only after they'd shut the door and were alone in the attic, that Martha had finally spoken to him again. "Broadway… when you were doing all that earlier in the van, were you with _me_ in your head, or with Angela?"

"I was with you, honey, I swear!" Broadway had said fervently. And he really had been… mostly.

"Hmmm. Well I still think that the thing to do now… is something they _didn't_ do with you and Angela. Let's make this night _ours_," as she'd tackled him onto the bed in the corner…

"Yo, Broadway? You home?" Etienne waved his hand in front of his face. "We been standing here on the roof a few minutes already; time to go surprise a Quarryman and ask some questions, or what?"

"Uh, yeah; we're just… giving everyone else time to get to their targets, that's all. Brooklyn said we should try to hit everyone in the first wave at about the same time, right? So there'd be less chance of someone calling and warning the others. Our target was closest, so we probably beat everyone else to theirs, but most of them should be arriving now…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

When Brooklyn and Isabel reached the hotel in Morningside Heights that was Jon Castaway's current address, they took quick peeks in through windows on the uppermost floors to figure out the room layout and numberings, and determine where their quarry's room would be on the fourth floor. Then they landed atop the building across the street, within line of sight of that room, for a last quick discussion of strategy before going in.

"Of all the Quarrymen, their leader's got to be the most dangerous," Brooklyn warned Isabel. "From what Elisa learned from Jon's brother Jason, the Canmore family has been hunting and fighting Demona for most of the last thousand years, and _slaughtering_ every gargoyle clan they've come across while hunting for her. It's been like a religious crusade for them, and you know how crazy humans can get when it comes to religion."

"Oh, yeah," Isabel agreed with an emphatic nod. "Jonestown."

"Huh?"

"Never mind; it's before your time in this modern era. But yeah, I know about religious fanaticism. And you're saying Jon Canmore or Castaway is the local archbishop of 'Gargoyle Hating-ism'."

"Yeah, pretty much. He knows what we are and what we're capable and not capable of, and he apparently hates us all the more because of it. So if the women and kids aren't in there with him, we won't be able to get information on their whereabouts out of him by just showing our fangs."

"So we take him out hard and fast, tie him up, then take him gliding," Isabel suggested. She showed her fangs in a wicked grin. "Ever play 'hot potato' with someone? Even if he doesn't fear us, he's probably got a fear of falling. We toss him back and forth a few times, maybe go 'oopsie' and pretend to drop him once or twice… and after he pukes up his guts, we tell him we'll stop playing with him only when he tells us where the women and children have been taken."

Brooklyn stared at Isabel in reluctant admiration, while silently wondering if that was common to felinoid gargoyles; a predilection for playing with their prey. "That is the wickedest idea I've heard in years… and it's probably the only one that will work, too. Okay, that's now our working plan. But first we have to take him out before he can muster a defense against us. Our best weapon is the element of surpri_**iiiiee!!!**_" as something hit him _hard_, and his right shoulder burned in agony. He'd been _**shot!**_

Shock and the force of impact unbalanced him; he fell backwards onto the roof, and Isabel shouted in alarm and reached for him—and her shout turned into a shriek as she abruptly jerked, and he knew that she'd been hit too.

The element of surprise had belonged to someone else after all… and now their foe had drawn first blood.

_**To Be Continued!**_


	4. Many Forms of Pain

**10.4: Many Forms of Pain**

_**Zzzzzaaaapppp**_

"You know what to say."

….

_**Zzzzzaaaapppp**_

"Say it, and there will be no more pain."

….

_**Zzzzzaaaapppp**_

"Give me your oath, and there will be no more pain."

Owen didn't bother responding to his tormentor anymore. He just waited, numbly, for the next electrical shock to be administered.

_**Zzzzzaaaapppp**_

The shocks had been administered on a frequent basis for the last several hours. Shouldn't it hurt less by now? Shouldn't enough of his nerve endings have been killed off to make him less capable of feeling pain?

….

_**Zzzzzaaaappp**_

...Apparently not.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

In the apartment that served as his control room, Thailog was not quite frowning. This was taking longer than he'd hoped for…

But not as long as he'd anticipated, when planning the operation. He'd very deliberately said nothing to Xanatos about Owen Burnett having been kidnapped; he preferred the man's status to be kept in doubt until the time came to release him, at the same time that he released Fox Xanatos. So he had seven nights to accomplish his objective, one that was even more important than extorting a hundred million dollars to start up his next corporation: breaking one of the Fey to his will, to become his personal servant.

Before their breakup, Demona had been useful to him in many ways; as a figurehead for running his corporation during the day, as a sex object for his pleasure at night… and as a source of information about magic. The programming that he'd been given while growing up had said nothing at all about magic; he hadn't believed it to be real, until that night in Paris when he'd seen a mist suddenly spring up on the Seine and a skiff come floating out of the mist, a skiff that definitely hadn't been there before the mist had coalesced.

He had tried to coax Demona to teach him magic, but she'd told him that he'd never be able to perform it himself; the capacity to wield magic was a rare talent, among both humans and gargoyles, and he simply did not have the gift. But she'd agreed that knowledge was a form of power as well, and had told him a great deal about the different types of magic, and those who wielded them.

Including the fact that Xanatos had as his servant a Fey in disguise. The trickster Puck, one of the more powerful Fey; Demona hadn't known just why a creature of such power was serving a mere human, but had assumed that Puck found it amusing somehow. "The Trickster rarely does anything that isn't for his own amusement," she'd told him. Adding darkly, "And when he's no longer amused, he's dangerous..."

With some reluctance, she'd told him the tale of how she'd tried to bind Puck to her will once, and how he'd cleverly distorted every order she'd given him, producing results that were exactly what she hadn't wanted. She'd been fortunate that he'd found the whole thing amusing, because after Goliath had freed Puck from the iron chains that bound him, he'd spirited them both away from their captors instead of instantly wreaking a hideous revenge on her for chaining him at all. But when she'd decided to just cut her losses and let him go free, and give him no more orders that he could distort for his own amusement… he'd decided to amuse himself anyway, by giving her the 'gift' of turning to human during the day.

Thailog personally thought he had a refined sense of humor, but he knew better than to attempt to persuade a Fey Trickster to ally with him for the sake of amusement. No, he preferred subordinates to partners. People who were bound to him in one way or another; by hopelessly deluded love, as Demona had been, or by obedience that had been programmed into them.

He'd taken a blood sample from Owen Burnett while he was unconscious; if the mortal guise was only skin deep and the blood was Fey, then once he had the money and means of hiring Sevarius again, he'd have a Fey cloned from the blood cells and programmed to obey him in the same way the other gargoyle clones had been programmed. But there were other ways of programming sentient beings besides starting from the moment of self-awareness. That was certainly the most effective way, but humans, being such resourceful and nasty creatures, had come up with other ways that even worked on full adults.

Surrounded by cold iron in the steel on all sides of the room and in his shackles, Puck was as helpless as any human would be. And likely had the same vulnerabilities that a human would have. A few days and nights of no food, _or_ sleep… days and nights filled with repeated applications of pain… that was all it took to break the will of the average human. Add some skillful psychological manipulation during the breaking process, follow it up with more manipulation after they were mercifully allowed both food and sleep, and they were brainwashed as effectively as if they'd been raised by their captors since birth.

A brainwashed Fey in his hands would be a useful tool indeed. But even if the Puck could not be completely brainwashed, Demona had assured him that a Fey was bound to fulfill any oath they swore, particularly an oath sworn on 'the blood of Daanu', Daanu being reportedly the progenitor for the whole Fey species. Thailog would be satisfied with an oath to serve him and grant his wishes…an oath coupled with a iron collar to wear, of course; a good businessman always had a backup prepared. And he had already compiled a list of commands for the Puck, wishes for him to fulfill, worded so carefully that they could not be distorted in any way:

To have his crippled wing healed and restored to full gliding capability again.

To have the ability to turn—_painlessly_—into a human by day; a healthy adult human male, handsome by human standards, and with his voice unchanged from one form to the other so he could hold conversations by phone at any time of day or night.

To have all the cloned gargoyles back under his command, particularly his sex toy Delilah, with all their memories wiped of their few months of freedom from his control.

To have both Demona and Elisa Maza delivered to him, naked except for being bound hand and foot (and wing, in Demona's case) in unbreakable chains. Including ball-gags that he could remove or instantly replace with a single word…

And most importantly, to have Owen Burnett become his mole within Xanatos Enterprises for exactly one year; bound to say or otherwise communicate nothing to Xanatos or anyone else about the agreement, while reporting to him everything that the business does and achieves.

Thailog was sure that once he used the first hundred million dollars of ransom to start up a new corporation, it would take far less time than a year for him to use Owen's information to topple Xanatos Enterprises. Beating them in business deal after business deal until the company was hemorrhaging red ink, at which point his new company would do a hostile takeover. David Xanatos would be out on the streets, rendered penniless, and Thailog smiled again at the thought before hitting the red button on the console once more.

On the monitor screen, Owen jerked again as a few thousand volts of low-current electricity surged through the floor of his steel cell and into his body; shocks that had been carefully calculated to be extremely painful but not lethal. The electrical generator wired to the cell floor administered the calculated shocks upon command, and the commands had been sent an average of every six minutes since Owen's awakening.

Sometimes he waited a minute or two longer between shocks, and sometimes he administered the shock even sooner; the uncertainty of the timing made the anticipation of the next shock even more dreadful. But he kept to the six-minute average; a gap between shocks just long enough for the shock effects to begin to fade from the nervous system, without any real rest allowed. Even the women's brief but bothersome demands for medical attention—which Thailog had refused, since he thought it unlikely that Fox would die anytime soon as a result of her stupidity—hadn't interrupted his schedule of torture.

Thailog had been hoping that Owen would be as weak as some humans were reported to be, and break down to submit to him after just a few hours of such treatment. But he'd already rigged the panel to go on automatic after dawn if necessary; to keep administering electrical shocks on a periodic basis during the day. No rest for Owen at any time, until he broke and swore that the Puck would become Thailog's personal servant, for a minimum of one full year.

"One year of service," he said into the microphone to Owen Burnett's cell, as his hand hovered over the red button again. "That's actually quite reasonable, isn't it? After all, what's one year in the life of an immortal? Just one year, to someone who's already lived thousands of years and may live thousands more?"

Of course, the 'may' in that last sentence was about as likely a chance as those statements of "You may have already won!" that were seen so often in junk mail advertisements. Thailog had no intention of letting the Puck survive that year of service. In Demona's stories and in the fairy tales he'd read as research, Fey tricksters were notorious for taking revenge on anyone who got the better of them; making the mortals regret ever meeting with them. While Thailog could appreciate the sentiment of revenge, he would certainly not give anyone the opportunity to have revenge on him if it could be prevented.

Before the year was up, after all his wishes were fulfilled and once Xanatos Enterprises' downfall was guaranteed, Thailog would pitch his servant back into the steel cell, then try out some of the ideas he had for killing an immortal Fey, based on what Demona had told him about their weaknesses. At least two of them should be effective, and he would try them all in succession, until nothing was left of the Fey at all; not even ashes.

The cell had already been rigged for the two most likely ways of killing a Fey—methods that would kill a human as well—before Owen Burnett had been put inside it. As a backup plan, in case his base of operations was discovered and Thailog had to end the entire operation in a hurry. But he really hoped he wouldn't be forced to use those backups; he was looking forward to that year of personal service…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Oliver Grimm dismissed his manservant with an irritated wave of his hand. Servants in America just didn't have the innate talent of the servants he was used to; able to gauge at a glance what the master's needs were and fulfill them before even being asked. This one, after taking entirely too long to roust out of bed, had to be told that a snifter of the best brandy was desired. And then, after bringing the brandy, he hovered close at hand like an anxious child instead of sensing his master's mood and discreetly vanishing into the background. Grimm would just fire the idiot, if it weren't for the sorry fact that he was actually slightly above par for the last four servants he'd hired and dismissed.

After the idiot servant finally retreated, Grimm sat in his study and sipped his brandy, while brooding over the events of the last several hours. He'd never been fond of flying, and having to fly long distances at a moment's notice grated on his nerves. Knowing that he was doing so on someone else's orders had made it even more irksome.

And all for a conversation with the Grandmaster that hadn't taken more than ten minutes! A conversation that could have just as easily taken place over the phone, instead of face-to-face. But no, the Grandmaster had insisted he'd come, and provided the transportation for him; asking him in such a way that he'd not been able to refuse. Even knowing that the command appearance wasn't just another reminder of the Grandmaster's higher stature and his power over the organization; that it likely heralded the asking of questions that Oliver Grimm had been avoiding for a very long time.

When he'd joined the ranks of the Illuminati many years ago—perhaps too many years ago, now; that was a thought to ponder as well—Oliver Grimm had been quietly advised that if he ever found himself in a face-to-face meeting with the Grandmaster, he should not attempt to tell a falsehood, not even the palest of white lies. Because when face-to-face, the Grandmaster could not be lied to. Of course, being who he was, Grimm had decided to challenge that assertion at the first opportunity… and learned the hard way that he should have taken the other member's advice.

Since then, Grimm had given the Grandmaster a wide berth whenever possible. And while still being an Illuminati member in good standing, he'd successfully avoided the Grandmaster for many years… until this fall, when he'd learned of the clan of gargoyles that lived in Manhattan and started working to eradicate them.

Barely six weeks after Grimm had given Jon Canmore a new identity and two million dollars for a start-up fund, and Jon Castaway had founded the Quarrymen, the Grandmaster had come to New York for a face-to-face meeting with him. Right after a similar meeting with David Xanatos, and knowing that the other billionaire had surely also been sweating bullets had been small comfort at the time.

But the questions that Grimm dreaded most had not been asked on that occasion. Nor had they been asked tonight, when he'd been flown out to meet the Grandmaster in his own home. Instead, the Grandmaster had only wanted his assurance that he'd had nothing at all to do with the kidnapping of David Xanatos' family, which had just taken place. And once he'd sworn that he had no knowledge of who had done the kidnapping or how it had been accomplished, the Grandmaster had also required that he swear that he would do nothing to aid the kidnapper or kidnappers in any way, now that he was aware of the occurrence.

That oath had rankled at him, but he'd sworn it, knowing that terrible consequences would befall if he broke it. But once he'd been returned to his home a few minutes ago, he'd seen nothing wrong in rousing Jon Castaway to warn him that the gargoyle were apt to go on the offensive tonight, in an attack on the Quarrymen.

After all, no matter what he might suspect, he did not _**know**_ that Castaway had decided to take the initiative and organized the kidnapping, with the help of a trusted lieutenant or two. But after so many years of studying the species, he was quite certain that if the gargoyles considered the kidnapped humans to be part of their clan, particularly the helpless infant, they'd rip the entire city apart in their efforts to get them back. And that they'd be apt to begin their search by focusing on known enemies of the clan, such as the Quarrymen.

Working on the assumption that Castaway and the Quarrymen were innocent in this affair, it had not been giving aid to the kidnapper at all to pass on his alert. And if his assumption happened to be wrong, well, they were surely prepared for a retaliatory attack already. So his oath to the Grandmaster hadn't been broken or bent even slightly; he could rest easy.

But he still spent a long time brooding over his brandy, and over the answers to questions that had not been asked.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Jon cursed himself in blistering terms for being so impetuous. He'd fired too soon! He should have waited until they'd flown closer, to be sure of his kills!

He'd been woken up by Oliver Grimm's call less than ten minutes ago; a call warning that David Xanatos' family had been kidnapped, and that if the gargoyles learned of it, they would involve themselves in the search and rescue efforts. Even if the gargoyles were no longer living in Xanatos's castle, they were apt to consider the missing people part of their clan, and begin frantically searching for them… and that they would almost certainly start their search by going on an offensive against the Quarrymen.

Castaway had almost laughed at the notion. Gargoyles, caring about human children? The Demon that his family had hunted for a thousand years had certainly never cared about the safety of humans of any age. When he was much younger, Jon had thought that perhaps the Demon was an exception, the gargoyle equivalent to a psychopathic murderer, and that the rest of her species were like timber wolves; dangerous only when threatened, or when extremely hungry and no other food was available. But his encounters with the clan in New York had taught him the truth; that they were all monsters, eager to prey upon the innocent and to kill for no other reason than for their twisted pleasure. And that the world would be a better place once their kind was eradicated from it.

But Grimm had been certain that the gargoyles would be angry about the kidnapping and violently searching the city for the missing people, and Jon had conceded that it was possible they'd grown fond of a few humans; those who were so perverse and traitorous to their own species as to give aid and comfort to the gargoyles, like that black-haired bitch who'd been seen with Goliath.

It was possible that the gargoyles might be fond of David Xanatos's family, since they'd stayed at his castle for a few months before departing for somewhere else in the city (right after his man Ed Johnson had been given the assignment of smashing them during the day, when he had an opportunity to sneak into the castle. What had really happened that day? Johnson had told him that he'd been caught and summarily fired before getting close enough to the gargoyles to do any damage, and at the time Jon had been too busy dealing with the loss of eleven men in a firefight with gargoyles elsewhere in the city to question him any further. But right after that, the gargoyles had left the castle; had more gone on than Ed had told him about? The whole Johnson family had moved out of state immediately afterwards, leaving with no forwarding address…)

So, conceding that Grimm might possibly be right about the gargoyles taking the kidnapping of David Xanatos' family personally, Castaway had called the Quarryman headquarters. He'd planned to advise Martinez, the lieutenant on duty tonight, to double the number of net-mortars issued to the patrollers, increase patrol check-in times to every fifteen minutes, and double the number of people on watch at the warehouse, arming them with net-mortars as well. Extra precautions, to be on the safe side.

And the phone had rung… and kept ringing… No one had answered, and even the answering machine hadn't turned on to take his call. By the seventh ring, a chill had settled into Jon's guts. He knew that the warning had come too late, and something very bad had happened at the Quarrymen's headquarters…

He'd dropped the phone and quickly gotten both dressed and armed. Turning the hotel room's lights back off, he'd donned his night-vision goggles, drew the window curtains open, and waited.

And sure enough, not two minutes after he'd drawn the curtains aside, he'd seen a pair of winged silhouettes against the night sky, settling onto the roof of the building opposite his window. After wreaking havoc at Quarrymen headquarters, they'd come for him! But he wouldn't go down without a fight! And he'd drawn a bead on them with his .45 and fired.

The glass in his hotel window had shattered as the first bullet flew out, followed in quick succession by two more as he'd fired on the pair. He didn't care about the glass shattering; it would have been a casualty soon enough anyway, when the gargoyles came in to attack him, and better it shattered outwards than inwards. All he cared about was killing the gargoyles before they could kill him.

All the firearms training he'd been given while growing up had done him well; he'd compensated for the distance and for the resistance of breaking through the glass, and by the way the two gargoyles had suddenly jerked and fallen back, he'd gotten both of them. But had they been killing shots? If he'd waited until they were closer, gliding through the air to attack him, then he'd have had a better chance of hitting vital areas. And even if he still just wounded them, a gargoyle who fell out of the sky from several stories up was just as apt to splatter on the pavement as any human falling the same distance. But he'd been too eager, and now he might have wounded gargoyles on his hands; wounded beasts were the most dangerous…

Crying. A child was crying. Through the thin hotel walls he could hear a child sobbing about bad men coming to kill them; she had probably been woken by the sound of gunfire and glass shattering. And now he could hear a woman's voice, speaking in comforting yet tense tones as she tried to shush her daughter. An older boy, grumbling about being woken up and blaming the younger child. And a man, speaking in low and urgent tones, perhaps into the phone…

All the blood drained from Jon's face in horror as he realized what he'd forgotten in the heat of the moment; that he was in a hotel filled with other people, families of innocents. There were innocent children not even ten feet away from him, and when the monsters came for him, filled with bloodthirsty vengeance, they'd probably attack anyone nearby as well!

He had to draw the monsters away from the hotel, or otherwise convince them not to come into the hotel after him. If he had a hovercycle handy he'd use it to fly right up past the monsters, taunting them to follow him… but he didn't have a hovercycle, so it was time to start thinking about options he did have. There were probably other gargoyles converging on his position right that moment; how could he convince them not to attack the hotel?

By raising such a ruckus that they'd be warned off, he thought as he abruptly dashed out into the hall. Gargoyles were sensitive to bright lights and loud noises, they liked it dark and quiet… and a hotel fire alert system wasn't dark and quiet at all. There was a fire alarm not ten feet away from his door; he smashed the glass with the butt of his gun and yanked the handle down hard.

Instantly, alarm claxons began going off. And the lights in the hallway went abruptly from nighttime-dim to full brightness, and the dark shadows under all the doors nearby suddenly brightened; room lights were being turned on as well. So much light and sound, so abruptly; it should at least make the gargoyles pause a bit before attacking. At least that's what he hoped, as he ran back into his room only long enough to grab the two bags he always kept packed, then dashed for the stairs.

Even burdened with his luggage, he made it down four floors in less than fifteen seconds, sheer adrenaline spurring him into leaping down from landing to landing in the stairwell. He knew his knees would make him pay for the stunt later on, but speed was essential; he had to get outside and draw the gargoyles away from the innocent children!

He kicked open the door at the base of the stairs, dashing through the hotel lobby and outside. Once he was outside and running away from the entrance, he took two more quick shots up at the spot where the gargoyles had been seen, screaming, "_**Die, monsters**_!" as loudly as he could. If they heard him, they'd know he had left the building, and would follow him away from it!

Of course, that was assuming the monsters heard him over the fire alarms shrieking on every floor of the hotel, and the increasing babble of voices as more and more people were roused by the alarm. But he'd done all he could to help them; now it was time to escape, and to find another safe place to rest his head. And of far more urgency, to find out what had happened at Quarrymen headquarters…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"Dammi, _dammit_, _**dammit!**_" Brooklyn cursed, staring down at the street in front of the hotel while struggling to his feet, clutching his bleeding shoulder. "That sonofamonkey, bred-out-of-season bastard got the drop on us—and now he's getting away!" as he lurched to the edge and prepared to launch, to glide down after Castaway.

"Brooklyn, no!" Isabel had been clutching at her own injured wing, but now she grabbed at his good arm. "There are too many people down there; we'll be _**seen**_!"

"This is Manhattan; they already _**know**_ we exist!" Brooklyn reminded her harshly, reaching to pry her concerned hand off—and then stopping and grinding his beak against the pain as his vision filled with starbursts, because he'd inadvertently tried to use the shoulder he'd just been shot in. And by the time his vision had cleared and he could look down at the street again, Castaway was no longer in sight. "_**Dammit!**_ Where'd he go?!" Down that alley? Or had Castaway hopped into that cab that was now speeding down the street?

Brooklyn finally had to conclude that their mission had failed. The failure burned at him, almost as bad as the bullet in his shoulder. …No, actually, not even half as bad; getting shot _hurt like hell!_The failure just made him even more miserable as they radioed to alert the other teams of what had happened; as they assured the others that their wounds weren't fatal and that Cecelia should not abandon her mission to render first aid for them; as Isabel helped him rig a bandage and sling for his arm from his belt and loincloth, and as he and Isabel limped back to the castle.

A bullet had ripped through her left wing, missing the bones and the vital pinfeathers but still leaving a bloody hole that made using the wing agonizing. They had to fly tandem, Brooklyn helping keep her aloft, while she did her best to hang onto him from the side without actually touching his right arm.

Gliding when they were both wounded took most of their concentration, so they were silent most of the way to the castle. They talked only twice, the first time when Isabel grumbled that the clan really needed to establish a few safe houses elsewhere in the city. To which Brooklyn had to agree; a wounded gargoyle with no one else along to assist in gliding, would need some other safe place that could be reached with minimal to no gliding involved. Now that they knew the Quarrymen were aware of all their old perches, they'd need to come up with new ones. The second time Isabel spoke up, she said harshly, "Stop biting yourself in the tail."

"What?"

"You heard me…and I heard you! You were muttering something about Goliath under your breath, and 'failure'. Comparing yourself to him, and thinking that if he'd been in charge for this, _he_ wouldn't have gotten shot, right?"

"And he wouldn't have gotten his _mate_ shot, either," Brooklyn said through gritted teeth.

"Bullshit! Your plan was good, or Adam wouldn't have gone along with it! If he'd had a better idea, believe me, he would have said so. How do you think Goliath would have handled this any better? Go on; name one thing he'd have done differently."

"He wouldn't have assumed that we'd be able to _surprise_ Castaway, that's what!" Brooklyn said angrily, angry more at himself than at her. "And he wouldn't have stopped to perch in plain sight of the enemy's hideout; just asking for him to shoot at us!"

"A hideout that's a _hotel room_; a room that he hadn't moved into that long ago, according to what Lexington found in the computer. Do you think the hotel would let a guest start mounting trip-wires and other defenses in their building? And it's nearly three in the morning now; most humans are sound asleep! I don't know how he knew we were coming, but he had to have been not just awake but expecting us already, to have shot us when we hadn't been perched there for more than a minute. Goliath would have been just as surprised by the gunfire as you, and he's a bigger target, so he probably would have taken a couple more bullets—_look out_!"

Brooklyn looked up, cursed, and steered them away from the building they'd been heading towards; they'd been so caught up in their conversation and the pain they were both in, they hadn't noticed the wind current shifting direction, until it was almost too late. They cleared the building by several feet, but that put an end to conversation for a while.

When they were almost to the castle, Brooklyn concluded aloud, "At least we know our people weren't being held in that hotel room. Castaway wouldn't have abandoned it so fast if they were. Especially knowing that either hotel security or the fire department is going to come investigate why that alarm was set off, and check out the closest rooms in the process."

That was something, at least. But it still burned at him that Castaway had gotten away, with whatever he knew about the kidnap victims. Because Isabel was right, they wouldn't have been shot like that if Castaway hadn't been expecting trouble from them—and the most likely reason for expecting trouble was because he'd been involved in the kidnapping; that it had been done on Castaway's orders, if he hadn't done it himself!

Whether it was Brooklyn's fault or not, they'd failed in their mission. All he could now was hope that one of the other six teams succeeded in finding their missing people…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Inside the steel cell, the children had finally woken up. They were still sluggish and miserable from the effects of the drug, but they were awake and apparently all right, much to their mothers' relief.

Over the past several hours, the two women had kept to innocuous conversation in their talking, while discussing their options and strategies in sign language. It was slow going, because the version of sign language Fox had learned during her mercenary years was a different 'dialect' than the version Anne had been taught in the Labyrinth, and both of them frequently had to backtrack in response to puzzled looks and hand-spell out words and phrases that had been misinterpreted. Also, saying one thing while signing another is carrying on two conversations in two different languages at once, and Anne occasionally slipped up in her signing. But they'd kept at it, since there hadn't been much else to do besides cuddle and keep their children warm.

Though Fox had tried to do something else, once; roughly two hours after they had woken up, she had handed still-unconscious Alexander to Anne and gotten up, saying casually that she had gotten stiff from sitting for so long, and needed to stretch and walk out the stiffness. She'd made a slow circuit of the cell while stretching and moving this way and that… moves that happened to be a martial arts _kata_ that she had learned years ago. And when she was ready and as far on the opposite side of the cell as she could get, she'd abruptly turned around and bolted for the featureless door, aiming straight for the seam where door met wall in a hard flying kick.

She'd hoped that the force of the blow would shatter the lock on the door, which had to open outwards since there were no hinges on their side. She'd done it before in years past, to wooden doors and even doors made of aluminum or sheet steel. Over the last few hours she'd remembered and counted back, and as far as she could recall, she had previously kicked in eleven doors…

But not this one. She'd hit it plenty hard, but the thick steel door had withstood the blow with barely the slightest dent at point of impact. Instead, she'd fallen to the floor cursing in pain, from the waves of agony radiating up from her right foot. Her low-heeled shoe had been completely shattered by the impact, falling away in pieces. And that wasn't all that had been shattered…

Anne had been trained in giving first aid as part of her childcare training, and after a brief examination she thought that Fox had broken at least two bones in her foot, probably more. She'd shouted aloud for their captor to bring in some bandages, ice packs and splinting materials.

After a short pause their unseen captor had responded, with a trace of nasty amusement in his voice. He'd informed them that Fox's injury likely wasn't fatal, and he saw no reason to supply anything for treating her foot, since she could just stay off it and sit there like a good girl until the ransom was paid. Over the hours Fox had thought up some new obscenities for their captor, and she would have shouted them just then, but she'd been too busy gritting her teeth and trying to keep from crying.

So Anne had improvised a soft splint, with three water bottles and the long-sleeved blouse she took off before putting her coat back on. The blouse was ripped to strips, and two water bottles were tied around Fox's foot and the third to her ankle, keeping it immobile. They had no ice packs, but the cool water in the bottles helped to draw away body heat and reduce the swelling. And with sheer pain overcoming any sense of embarrassment, Fox had opened her mouth wide and let Anne squeeze in a full twenty drops of liquid aspirin for infants, from the bottle in the diaper bag.

The diaper bag had long since been searched for anything else that could be helpful in escaping, as had their pockets and Anne's purse, but there was nothing. The cell phone Fox had bought for the nanny's use was missing from her purse, as were the cell phone and the Swiss Army knife Fox had been carrying before their kidnapping. So after doing what they could for Fox's foot, they'd gone back to just sitting with their children and waiting for them to wake up. And the soft pained whimpering as they'd finally begun stirring from the drug induced semi-comas, first Bethany and then Alexander, had been music to the mothers' ears.

After being given a bottle of formula and a diaper change, sung to and held while rocking for nearly an hour, Alexander finally stopped crying. After soothing him for a few minutes more, Fox whispered in her son's ear, "Alexander… call for Puck."

Soon after the night of Alexander's birth, Puck had established what he'd called a low-level telepathic bond with the newborn; done for the purpose of protecting and teaching the baby, as Oberon had charged him to do. Owen had assured the anxious parents that the bond would do the infant no harm, but it would allow the two of them to 'talk' to each other after a fashion when the infant was far too young for normal human speech, and it would let Puck know whenever his charge was in danger or in need of his help.

As it happened, the bond hadn't harmed Alexander, but it had changed him; telepathically 'talking' with Puck had boosted the development of his brain's speech center to the point that though only a few months old, Alexander could understand nearly everything said to him. (He didn't yet have the fine motor control for speaking intelligibly yet, but Fox was sure that when he did, he'd skip right past the usual one-word attempts and speak in full and grammatically correct sentences.) So Fox knew he understood what she wanted him to do; to telepathically call out for his guardian and teacher. The question was, could he actually do it through the steel walls of their cell? And was Owen/Puck even still alive to receive the message? The only way to find out, was to try.

Alexander stared at her solemnly, then closed his eyes. A faint glimmer of green glowed from beneath the closed lids… and then Alexander scrunched up his face and _screamed_.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Anne had been keeping Bethany occupied with singing nursery rhymes, coaching her on the second verse of "Four and Twenty Blackbirds," when both of them were jolted by Alexander suddenly screaming. The sort of scream that Anne knew from her years of working in day care centers, one not heard often but unmistakable; the scream of a child in _really bad pain_.

Anne instinctively hugged Bethany even closer to her, while spinning around to find out what had hurt Alexander. Had Fox _dropped_ the baby? Or worse… oh, _please_ let it not be deliberate child abuse, from a parent taking out their frustrations on the nearest soft target; she'd seen enough of that particular nightmare to last a lifetime…

But whatever had happened to Alexander, Fox hadn't done it deliberately; she was frantically rocking and shushing the baby, begging him to stop crying and swearing it would be all right, whatever 'it' was. And looking over at Anne with desperation in her eyes, silently but plainly begging for help with the baby.

Anne had plenty of experience with calming children, and knew Alexander wouldn't calm down until his mother did. So she set down Bethany while putting on her best 'friendly professional' face, took Alexander in her arms and rocked him, humming and speaking soothingly to him… and watching out of the corner of her eye as Fox visibly relaxed, assured her son was in good hands. In short order both mother and child were calm again.

Once everyone had calmed down, Anne leaned close enough to Fox for them to speak in whispers. And she asked carefully, "What happened earlier?"

Fox looked miserable as she whispered back, "I asked Alexander to try to contact Puck."

Anne knew about the telepathic bond between the Fey Trickster and the infant boy; she'd witnessed its use more than once, in the way the baby had seemed to brighten with delight just before Owen Burnett would spin around and bring Puck out to play, and when Puck had 'heard' Alexander's questions while giving the children lessons in magic. The bond had never hurt either teacher or student before; why had trying to contact Puck been so painful now?

She could think of only two reasons, both of them awful. Either Owen/Puck was in incredible pain at that moment, and in trying to contact him, Alexander had felt his teacher's pain… or the cold iron in the steel walls all around them were doing more than inhibiting the use of magic. That so much cold iron made using magic not only much harder, but painful to even attempt.

She swallowed hard, knowing that they had to put one of those theories to the test. Any minute now, Fox would suggest it… so she might as well suggest it herself. Bethany had no telepathic bond with Puck, but after only two months of lessons her daughter was as skilled as Alexander at simple magic such as levitation, and basic telekinesis.

After handing Alexander back to Fox, Anne took Bethany and cuddled her little girl on her lap again. And after a few moments of hugging she whispered quietly, "Bethany, do you remember my showing you how a doorknob works? With the little piece that pokes out of the door and sticks into the little hole in the doorjamb, and if someone makes the little piece stay in place, the door won't open?"

"Uh-huh," Bethany whispered back, her eyes wide and solemn; sensing this was important.

"Well, do you see that part of the wall that looks like a door?" as she quickly gestured at the door, hoping the brief gesture would seem innocuous to their captor if he was watching. "It really is a door, but there's no doorknob on this side; they forgot to put one in on this side. But I'm sure there's a knob on the other side, and the little piece that goes right in the middle… I want you to think about the little piece of the doorknob that goes inside the door, the little piece that's stuck inside the wall right now. If you can get it to move back inside the door, then we can open it and go home!"

That was all the incentive Bethany needed to try. Fox was looking alertly at them, sensing something was up, as Bethany snuggled into her mother's arms but turned to stare at the door.

And after a moment, Bethany's body went rigid. Another few moments more, and she began whimpering. After ten more seconds of staring at the door, she burst into tears. "It hurts, Mommy! An' the more I try, the more it hurts," she sobbed in Anne's arms.

"Ssshhh, sshhhh… There, there, it'll be all right… you tried your best, darling; now just leave it be. It'll be all right," Anne spoke soothingly past the massive lump in her throat and the tears that threatened to spill from her own eyes. Then she turned towards Fox and mouthed silently, _she tried her best_. And Bethany's best efforts had been not only defeated but punished by cold iron.

Fox nodded in bleak acknowledgement, and went back to rocking Alexander. There was nothing more to say, or do.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Jon Castaway hadn't been surprised by breaking-n-entering gargoyles, but six Quarrymen lieutenants were sure surprised. With minor variations, the same scene played out all across the city:

Breaking glass as two gargoyles burst in through the bedroom window.

Shouts and screams of alarm as the Quarryman lieutenant, and anyone else in bed with him, was roughly hauled out of bed and pinned to the floor with a taloned foot on the back.

One gargoyle held down the Quarryman and other adult if one was present, while the other quickly searched the home, wrecking or confiscating any weapons found in the process. In three homes, the searching was accompanied by screams and sobs from the people being held down, outright begging them not to harm the children.

Any children in nearby bedrooms, woken by the noise, saw gargoyle heads poking into their rooms just long enough to growl at them, "_Stay in bed_! Stay put until your parents come for you!" before their doors were slammed shut again and locked.

And after the homes were searched, the Quarryman lieutenants were flipped over onto their backs, to face eyes blazing white or red and voices growling with menace as they were interrogated about the kidnapped humans.

In all six cases, the gargoyles eventually satisfied themselves that those Quarrymen knew nothing about the kidnapping. Then the phones were smashed, and the gargoyles left the way they came… to the great surprise of the human residents, every time.

"Th-that's it? You're not going to kill and eat us?" Quarryman Lieutenant Harrison Worley asked, rubbing his bruised shoulder as he stared at the dark red, bald male gargoyle and the blue-green, black-maned female gargoyle stepping out through the shattered bedroom window onto the fire escape.

The male smiled as he picked up the Quarryhammer that had been tossed onto the fire escape earlier, and turned it on with a twist of the handle. "Well, if you really want us to…"

"N-_no_! Please don't!" Harrison's wife Debby begged, her eyes wide as saucers as she turned back from the bedroom door; she'd been about to go check on the children, not trusting the gargoyles' assurances that they were unharmed.

The gargoyles shrugged at each other and left, taking the Quarryhammer with them. Harrison stared disbelievingly out the window after them, while Debby went to check on the kids. When she came back in with a face grim as death, Harrison asked anxiously, "Are they okay?"

Debby said flatly, "Toby wet the bed."

Harrison breathed a sigh of relief. "That's all? Hell, tonight that's…" and his voice trailed off as he finally noticed the fury blazing in his wife's face as she advanced on him.

"_**I**_ am going to change the sheets on Toby's bed and put him into clean pajamas," Debby announced as she backed Harrison up against the wall with one manicured finger jabbing at his chest. "_**You**_ are going to find something to board up that window before we freeze to death. In the morning, _**I**_ will buy a new phone and call a repairman to get that window replaced, and _**you**_ will turn in your damn Quarryman uniform! Or better yet, _**burn**_ it out in public, where everyone can see you do it! This wouldn't have happened to us if you hadn't joined them! And if it turns out they really did kidnap two women and their children…!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

After the six lieutenants were visited and knew nothing, the gargoyles had a conference via radios to compare notes, and to reorganize their teams. Cecelia and Lexington returned to castle; Cecelia to treat Brooklyn and Isabel's injuries, and Lexington with the confiscated hovercycle and other things taken from the Quarrymen, to do a more thorough search of their computer. Martin paired up with Robert, and the remaining five teams set out to find and question as many of the twenty squad leaders as they could before dawn.

In mid-winter, the graveyard shift ended before the night did. Matt and Elisa came to the castle as soon as their shift ended, to take the box of materials that had come from the Quarrymen's office and sift through it, looking for possible clues.

The gargoyle search parties returned to the castle at roughly the same time, after finding and questioning fifteen of the twenty Quarrymen squad leaders. Adam had called a halt to the searching at six a.m.; too many people were waking up all across the city, and the search parties were losing the element of surprise. "And not one of the people we questioned knew anything at all about the kidnapping," Adam told Brooklyn.

"Which could just mean Castaway went outside his organization to arrange it," Brooklyn growled as he rubbed at his bandaged shoulder; Cecelia had extracted the bullet, stitched him up and given him some gargoyles-safe painkillers, but they only reduced the pain to a dull throbbing. "The most likely reason for him to be expecting us tonight is that he's involved in the kidnapping!"

"If he went outside the Quarrymen, then he probably went to known criminals to arrange it, and those criminals might well be part of or connected to that Tony Dracon's gang that Elisa suspects. Humans have that saying, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'," Adam pointed out.

Brooklyn agreed he might be right, and he called Elisa in from her and Matt's work on the Quarrymen's materials, to help him and Adam plan their activities for the next night.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"Lexington?" Rebecca and Robert had been looking for their mate since they'd returned to the castle. They finally found Lexington in the nursery, sitting on the rug and hugging Alexander's winged teddy bear, trying not to cry.

"I tried everything I could think of," he told them in a small, broken voice. "I searched every file on that computer, reconstructed everything that had been deleted since the last defrag; stripped that thing down to the zeroes and ones! I retraced every website that had been visited and every email sent and received; hacked into every site I could… and I couldn't find anything about the kids, about where our people might be held captive or which of them did it. But they've _got_ to be behind this; the Quarrymen are the only ones who are fanatical enough to do this to a little baby boy who only just learned how to crawl…"

"We'll find them, honey," Rebecca said comfortingly as she and Robert crouched together on the rug to wrap their wings around him. "We'll find them…"

"We'll find them," Robert echoed, before adding, "Lex, from what you told us about life up here and the gangs you've fought, I think you're really underestimating what that Tony Dracon and his gang would be willing to do, for no other reason than 'lots of money'. And there are those other people, the Pack that Fox used to be a member of. After Fox dumped them, after what Xanatos's scientists did to them, and after all the times you've thwarted them… They're sure to hold a grudge against everyone in the castle!"

"The FBI already thought of the Pack," Lexington said, sadly shaking his head. "Not because of us, but because they're known criminals, and Fox used to be one of them. And some gangs have a policy of not letting _anyone_ leave their organization and live to tell about it. Martha showed me the notes she took, from listening in on the FBI's investigation. Hyena and Jackal are still in jail and in pieces; they were rebuilt only enough to live and to feed themselves, not to hurt anyone or break out of prison. Dingo's confirmed to be in Australia; the news feeds down there showed he was busy helping some park rangers take down a poaching ring, at the same time the kidnapping took place here. The only one the FBI agents haven't accounted for yet is Wolf. About three weeks ago, right after Thanksgiving, Wolf was transferred from Riker's Island to some other prison upstate, but the other prison says he never arrived there."

"Well, then; that's another definite suspect! Are they looking into what happened to the prison transport truck?" Rebecca asked.

"Yeah, as well as who actually gave the orders to have him transferred upstate, since he hadn't gone to trial yet. But…" Lexington shook his head again. "Wolf is _**stupid**_. He wasn't all that smart back when he was fully human; he may have been the leader but Fox was the brains of the Pack. After he got turned into a wolf-man, he was more brutish every time we ran into him. From what Hudson and Goliath told us about the last time they dealt with him, that Viking-haunted battleaxe had to do most of the thinking for him, to come up with an even halfway-effective plan of attack! There's no way he could have organized and pulled off the kidnapping, especially not with Owen there. Puck would have laughed at him and turned him into a yappy little Chihuahua if he'd tried to do it by brute force."

"Then perhaps it was done by whoever pulled strings to get Wolf out of Rikers," Robert suggested. "And when the FBI finds out who did it, and Martha tells us what they've found, the clan can pay them a visit in force. Or maybe we'll find our people tomorrow night, when we go after Dracon's gang. But in the meantime, Lex, come join us at the table, okay? Martha and Broadway are making breakfast for everyone; come and eat. Things always look better on a full stomach than an empty one…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Matt and Elisa ate with the clan, but conversation at the table was subdued and minimal. Dawn came shortly after the meal was over.

The gargoyles posed for the day's sleep in the middle of the great hall instead of on the battlements; Brooklyn's decision, to reinforce Xanatos' pretence that the gargoyles had abandoned the castle for good. "After we find our people, we can decide again where we'll sleep, but for now we stay out of sight of any helicopters during the day. The only thing anyone will see on the battlements today, is the fake Hudson head on a platter."

Xanatos promised the gargoyles that he would have the hall doors locked after they went to sleep, so they wouldn't be found by the FBI or anyone else. Elisa and Matt wheeled two large sunlamps out from the castle's recently created clinic to the great hall; the sunlamps had been used to help Broadway heal after his wing had been shattered, and now they were set up in front of Brooklyn and Isabel's chosen spots to sleep. Elisa's reasoning was that since they were staying indoors instead of out in the sunlight, another source of solar energy should be brought in to help heal Brooklyn and Isabel's injuries.

Elisa stayed with the clan as they waited for dawn, talking quietly with Brooklyn, but Matt couldn't just stand around waiting for sunrise; he was still too agitated from everything that had happened. He and Elisa had searched through everything the gargoyles had brought from the Quarrymen's base of operations, and found nothing that could possibly be a clue about the kidnapping. With all the rosters, rolodexes and other things that had been in that box, even the phone's answering machine in case any messages had been left on it, it was likely that the Quarrymen had been hurt in more ways than one last night. But everything the clan had done to cripple the Quarrymen, hadn't helped one bit in getting their people back.

He looked up with a start, realizing that his wandering feet had brought him to the doorway of the nursery. This was where he usually saw Anne, in there minding the children, except for when they were asleep or when Lexington was cheerfully minding them instead. Then they'd spend time in the great hall, or some other public area. Old Hudson, who was about as subtle as a chainsaw, had hinted while watching television with them that they could find some privacy "for talking and such" in Anne's bedroom. But Matt had never set foot in that bedroom; he and Anne hadn't progressed beyond holding hands in their relationship. And now… would they ever do more than hold hands?

He walked inside the nursery, looking around. It was so painfully empty and silent… He was about to walk back out again, when something on the low table by the window caught his eye.

A child's drawing, three stick figures. Bethany's work; Alexander was still too young to wield a crayon. The drawing was of a child and two adults, all of them holding hands, smiling and happy. And the tallest adult had a scribbling of bright red hair…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

After seeing the gargoyles to their daily rest, Elisa went looking for her partner. While looking, she passed Xanatos on the way to the roof, his face grim as he carried the stone head on a platter. "You really think some news helicopters will see the head all the way up there, and report it?" she asked skeptically.

"If not, then tomorrow at noon I'll set the damn thing down in the middle of Times Square. But the kidnapper's expecting me to try to keep everything quiet, not even telling the police about the kidnapping. A discreet sign of compliance is best for a start."

Elisa had to agree with that, so she left Xanatos to his somewhat grisly task while she continued searching. She soon found Matt in the nursery, clutching a crayon drawing in his hands; his face contorted with grief and the tears he was stubbornly refusing to shed.

"We'll find them," she said fiercely as she hugged Matt hard. "I swear to you, partner, one way or another we _**will **_find them!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Dawn must have come at least an hour ago. Owen's watch had stopped working soon after he'd awakened; the electrical shocks had obviously damaged it, probably beyond repair. But Owen was reasonably sure it was long past dawn, because he hadn't heard from his captor and torturer for at least the last ten electrical zaps.

It was the only thing he could do to maintain his sanity; count everything that could be counted. He'd counted the number of steel plates in his cell. The number of lights, speakers and cameras embedded in the walls high out of his reach, and the number of portals that concealed other devices. And he had counted one hundred and fourteen jolts of electricity so far, with an average time of three hundred and sixty seconds between jolts. Variance in times between jolts was up to one hundred seconds in either direction, but that was the average.

The last twelve zaps had been exactly three hundred and sixty seconds, six minutes, apart. Such regular timing and the utter silence from the speakers surely meant that Thailog had set the controls to continue shocking him automatically, while the gargoyle slept. Xanatos had really taught him far too much about the benefits of planning ahead.

_**Zzzzzaaaapppp**_

…One hundred fifteen.

Owen hoped that Xanatos and the gargoyles would put a stop to Thailog soon. He had no doubt that Xanatos had summoned the gargoyles back from New Orleans and set them to searching the entire city, for the sake of the children if not Owen's own sake. Because Owen also had no doubt that Thailog was holding the children for ransom. He was quite sure...

Sure that Alexander was still alive and being held for ransom, at the very least. He could only hope and pray to Daanu that Bethany was still alive, too. If only he could ask… But he didn't dare. Not when his kidnapper held all the advantage. After awakening, he'd asked only once about what had happened to the children and women who had been in the limousine with him. Thailog had asked sweetly, "Do you truly care about their safety?"

"Only in that their safety matters a great deal to Xanatos, who is my employer," he'd said flatly. "Xanatos would no doubt pay dearly for their return." And after that he'd said nothing at all about the children. He dared not give any indication that their safety mattered the world to him, because that would give Thailog one more weapon to use to full advantage. If Thailog started broadcasting the children's tortured screams into the cell, while saying that their pain would stop when the Puck swore service to Thailog…

An oath that he _**couldn't**_ swear. He'd already sworn an oath of a human lifetime of service to David Xanatos as Owen Burnett, and Puck had been bound by Oberon to use his powers only to protect and teach Alexander. The two bindings together would not let him serve anyone else.

And Owen dared not explain that to Thailog, because he knew that the gargoyle would find the loopholes in those oaths and exploit them to full advantage. After all, a lifetime of service to David Xanatos would end as soon as the man was murdered, by a sniper rifle or other means. And Thailog could threaten to kill Alexander as well, unless the Puck protected the baby from Thailog's wrath by doing whatever the gargoyle wanted.

All Owen could do was say nothing, keep his mouth shut, and wait for rescue. Wait, and count.

Three hundred fifty-five seconds. Three hundred fifty-six seconds. Three hundred fifty-seven seconds. Three hundred fifty-eight seconds. Three hundred fifty-nine seconds…

_**Zzzzzaaaapppp**_

…One hundred sixteen shocks…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Inside their steel cell, the women and children weren't lolling about in defeated despair and resignation to their fate… at least not yet. But after their failed attempts at escape and at summoning help, despair was seeping into the room, leaving an ugly, metallic taste in their mouths as it weighed down their souls. They had each of them dozed off at one time or another, but sleep brought only nightmares.

Fox muttered as she stroked Alexander's fine soft hair, "There must be something we haven't tried yet…"

Anne didn't bother to reply to that, instead attempting to once more soothe her daughter, who was sniffling back tears from her latest nightmare while curled up on her mother's lap. "We'll be okay, Bethany," she whispered into honey-blonde hair over and over, trying to convince herself as well. "The gargoyles will come back to New York; they probably came running last night, as soon as this happened. They'll find us and free us, you just wait…" But her eyes met Fox's over that small head of hair with worry in their depths. They had been kidnapped over 16 hours ago, according to Anne's watch; a full night and most of the morning had passed without their being found yet. And with every passing hour whatever trail their kidnapper might have left grew colder, and the likelihood of their being found decreased even more.

Their situation was getting steadily worse in other regards as well. They had the diaper bag, the bottles of water and the pile of packaged beef jerky strips that their captor had left in the corner for food and drink, and a covered plastic bucket that had been left in another corner for use as a toilet, but nothing else. Anne always stocked the diaper bag with enough diapers and sealed bottles of formula for a day-long outing, and Fox had used only two diapers and one bottle of formula while at her father's home. But since their awakening those baby supplies had been steadily decreasing, and they doubted that their unseen and uncaring captor was going to come in any time soon to provide more.

They could live with the inevitable stench from overfull diapers and deal with the equally inevitable diaper rash, but once they ran out of food for Alex… Fox now wanted to kick herself for opting to let her milk dry up and feed Alex formula instead of nursing him. Anne looked forlornly at the last bottle of formula as they rationed it out to the baby, and wondered aloud if she could do as their primitive ancestors had done; feed Alex with bits of beef jerky that she'd pre-chewed to break up and soften with saliva. The thought made Fox grimace, but she'd seen worse while fighting as a mercenary in Africa.

But even that could only last for so long. There had to be something they could do to get out, or at least communicate with the world outside… but what?! They didn't have a gargoyle's strength or claws, for ripping through the steel; they had no tools to assist in a breakout; the children couldn't use their magic…

But the kids weren't the only ones with magic.

Alex had inherited his magical abilities from Fox herself, the daughter of Queen Titania of Avalon. But Fox had never been trained in her abilities; she hadn't even known she had them until the night of Alexander's birth. She'd watched one of Alex's lessons with Puck on the day Anne and Bethany had arrived at the castle, but something in her had recoiled from actually learning magic; she'd kept finding excuses to do something else whenever the time for magic lessons loomed.

Fox knew she could take a lot more pain than two tender young children; could probably withstand it long enough to work an effective spell. And she angrily asked herself why she'd been so cowardly about using her heritage for so long; if they got out of this—no, WHEN they got out! WHEN! She'd by God sit in on every lesson Puck taught until she could sling spells with the best of them! So what if it meant she couldn't handle the touch or sound of iron anymore; she'd learn to live with that. She'd trade in her favorite Glock 9mm for one of those fancy new composite-material handguns that airport security stations were so paranoid about.

But first, they had to get out of here… and she knew no magic spells. She still didn't know how she'd managed to conjure up a bolt of pure magical force hard enough to knock Oberon off his feet, the night they'd all defied his attempt to take Alex away. But still, she'd done it once, when she'd absolutely had to… and now, they absolutely had to get out of here.

Fox abruptly handed her fretful son over to Anne again. "Here, take him for a minute, and try to keep them both quiet. I need to concentrate," she said tersely.

"Concentrate on what?" Anne asked, even as she gathered Alex into his arms and tried to still his whimpers.

"On getting us the hell out of here. The kids aren't the only ones with power…" she whispered in Anne's ear before she turned towards the door. She awkwardly scooted herself across the floor until she was only four feet away from the sealed entrance, with her broken foot stuck out in front of her, and glared at the door as she concentrated with all her might. If she was capable of knocking Oberon flat on his ass, she should be able to blow that damn door clean off its hinges. Ignoring the throbbing pain still radiating her foot, she focused on the door while chanting internally, _Break it down. My baby's in danger. Hit it hard. My baby's in danger. Hit it HARD_…

After interminable seconds of steadily rising tension, with Fox glaring unrelentingly at the door and Anne and the children staring at her in mixed worry and hope, the hair on all their heads began to frizz, while the hair on their arms stood up as if they had encountered a massive charge of static electricity. And Fox began to glow ever so slightly, with a pale green light…

And suddenly brilliant verdant energy vomited out of her mouth and eyes, a beam of pure magical force, the very essence of power aimed directly at the door.

But never reaching it… just inches away from impact with the cold steel, the magical force suddenly imploded, recoiling on itself as if someone had suddenly blocked a stream of green water with a cupped hand. The cloud of force grew in all directions for a split-second, before bursting like a popped bubble… If soap bubbles could emit screeches loud enough to shatter eardrums as they died.

The magical backlash knocked Fox halfway across the room, to impact against the rear wall hard enough that it hurt _almost_ as much as the explosion going off behind her eyes.

When she finally returned fully to her senses, she found herself lying down with Anne's jacket bundled up for a pillow under her aching head, and the nanny and children huddled around her, tearfully begging her to be all right.

"I'm okay," she muttered, as she waved them off. She was lying, and they all knew it, but they allowed her to keep what was left of her pride. She started to sit up, but the way the room spun around her when she tried, convinced her to stay horizontal for a little while longer. She settled back down, thinking sourly, _Iron 3, Magic 0_...


	5. All Hands Effort

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

**10.5: All Hands Effort**

Elmer Dobbins was pretty good at scrounging, if he did say so himself. He was one of the best in the Labyrinth at finding soda cans and bottles that could be turned in for recycling money, and at finding stuff in other people's trash that was still perfectly useable by the Labyrinth's standards.

He'd been working for only a half-hour so far that morning, and had already found eight soda cans, a purse that only needed one seam stitched up again (and in Ms. Ruth's favorite shade of purple, too), and a Winnie-the-Pooh lunchbox that should be just fine for one of the kids to keep their treasures in, after the dents were smoothed out. And oooh, that shiny metal gleam at the bottom of the trash can needed further investigating…

But Elmer was good at using his ears as well as his eyes. Good hearing was a real survival trait on the street; you never knew what kind of person might be coming up from behind, whether a police officer fixing to arrest you for vagrancy or a gang member looking to rough you up just to prove his machismo to his buddies. So he paused in his reaching down to the bottom of the trash can when he overheard something coming out of a window above him:

"…gargoyles broke in, and attacked me and my girlfriend! I'm telling you, this is proof that they're a menace to the city and need to be destroyed! Like rabid dogs!"

Elmer glanced up, and decided the voice was coming out of that window two floors up that had been broken recently; the gaping hole had been taped over with a plastic garbage bag.

He faintly heard someone else talking; not as loud, not as excited. Something about 'sun,' maybe the New York Sun, since the next word he understood was 'investigating'. Then something about 'seventh person this happened to' and 'establish pattern'. And asking the first person to tell his story again.

"I was lying in bed, sound asleep, and two of those monsters just burst in through my window! I fought them as hard as I could, but they pinned me to the floor and then they ransacked my apartment! And look at these bruises on my chest! Those are from their talons; there's more on my back too! And they pinned down my girlfriend, too; they didn't care that she was sobbing with fear and begging them not to kill her! They're _monsters_!"

Another question from the other person, too faint for him to hear.

"Well, yeah, I… I finally managed to get free of their grip, and then I grabbed a baseball bat and scared them out of my home before they could really hurt her. But they left bruises on her, too, from where she was being held down!"

Then the other person said something like 'five of the six homes I've visited already', then something that Elmer couldn't quite make out, then a bit louder, 'gargoyles were definitely searching for something. Did you hear anything about what they were searching for?"

Now the first talker was starting to mumble his response. Elmer caught the words "Just some bullshit", and then something mumbled, then "Quarrymen kidnapping" and something that he was pretty sure was "woman and kid." Then the speaker grew louder, more forceful as he finished, "But the Quarrymen are here to _protect_ the citizens of New York, not kidnap any of them! I'm telling you, it was just an excuse for them to invade people's homes and destroy property! Do you know how much it's going to cost me to fix that window?!"

But Elmer had heard enough. Grabbing the goods he'd already collected, he headed for the nearest entrance to the Labyrinth.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Derek Maza had never, ever been a morning person. Now that he was Talon the mutate, leader of a clan of gargoyle clones, he at least had a good excuse for staying up past three a.m. and sleeping in till nearly noon every day. He led the rest of the Labyrinth too, but most of the humans weren't morning people either, and the few early risers knew not to disturb him and Maggie unless it was a real emergency.

From the way somebody was pounding on his door, waking him up at—he peered at the bedside wind-up alarm clock; only nine in the morning!—it had better be an emergency of some sort! Growling, he tossed back the covers and crawled out of bed. Maggie stirred too, but he told her to stay in bed, he'd handle it.

He opened the door to find Dobbins on the other side, looking very worried. Which instantly worried him; Dobbins was one of his most reliable people, not apt to fly off the handle without a real good reason. He held up a finger to pause Dobbins in whatever he'd been about to say, shut the door behind himself and led Dobbins a short way down the corridor, out of Maggie's earshot, before saying, "What's wrong?"

"There was gargoyle activity in town last night," Dobbins said anxiously. "_Real_ gargoyle activity, not faked stuff, from what I heard. They were breaking into people's homes, looking for some woman and her child that are important to the gargoyles; people that were _kidnapped_. And just now Ruth tried to call Anne's new phone number, and she's not answering…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Half an hour later, David Xanatos received an alert from Castle Security. "Sir, we have an inbound flyer; east-northeast. Parameters match the mutate Talon."

"Let him in," David said blearily while hunched over his coffee. If it was important enough for Talon to risk gliding around in broad daylight to come see him, then trying to keep the mutate out would only result in damage to the castle, and he just wasn't in the mood for that right now.

He drank more coffee, desperate for the caffeine; what few hours of sleep he'd had last night had been plagued by nightmares. He'd told Owen's secretary to screen all his calls, and his executives in the offices below that he wasn't to be disturbed for anything less than a 500-point drop in the stock market. He knew that he should get his mind back on business, but so far that day the calm and confidence he needed to project at all times, as the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar corporation, was eluding him. Alexander was missing! His son, a tiny fragile being who had become David's entire world the moment he'd been born, had been taken from him… and he still didn't know how or by who!

Ten minutes later Talon was striding into his office. The mutate's fur was standing on end from the static charge he'd generated, and his eyes were wild. "Xanatos, where are Anne and Bethany?! Is it true; have they been _kidnapped_?!"

"Where did you hear that?!" David asked sharply. His secretary had reported no less than six calls from news organizations already; people asking if the Xanatos family had any connection with the 'kidnapped women and children' that the gargoyles had told the Quarrymen they were looking for. But Xanatos hadn't taken any of those calls, and had told the secretary that his only reply for any reporter that day was 'no comment'. But if somebody had managed to connect the dots; if they'd made the news public already…

"One of my people overheard news about the gargoyles back in town, and breaking into people's homes to search for kidnap victims that were important to them. Anne's not answering her phone this morning, when she should be here getting everything ready for the present drop-off this afternoon! And I just checked the nursery and Anne's room on my way in here, and they're not there! I tried to call you but your goddamn secretary wouldn't let me through, so now I'm here asking you; _**what's happened to Anne and Bethany?!?**_" as his fur began to crackle and his fists to faintly glow.

"Pull in that charge before you fry all the electronics!" David said sharply. "Yes, they've been kidnapped, and so have Alexander and Fox!"

Instead of reining in his charge, Talon slammed his fists onto the mahogany desk, leaving plate-sized scorch marks on the polished wood. "_**GodDAMN**_ _**you**_, _**Xanatos!!**_ I _**knew**_ I should never have let them set foot in this goddamn castle! Everyone who comes anywhere _**near**_ you is… Wait. You said…" Talon's eyes went from slits of near-murderous rage to wide with sympathy and dismay. "Oh, man. Man, I'm sorry…"

Just then the phone on his desk rang. "Save it," David said sharply as he reached for the phone. The secretary had been told to let calls through only if the caller was _**not**_ a reporter but specifically mentioned Alexander or Fox. This call might be the kidnapper calling back, with more instructions about the ransom!

But instead, the call was from Halcyon Renard. "I would have called Janine directly, but her cell phone is turned off," the old man told him sharply. "Just tell her that her helicopter is fixed and ready, and she can come over with Alexander to come pick it up at any time."

After a moment, David managed to say "I'll let Fox know that when I see her." And was about to hang up the phone, when Talon said sternly, "Don't hang up."

Startled, he looked up at the mutate as Talon continued, "That's Fox's father, isn't it? These ears you gave me are pretty sharp, and I heard him call her Janine; no one else calls her that."

"_Xanatos, who's that on your end of the line_?" they both heard Renard say faintly through the receiver.

"Back when I was on the force, my precinct had a couple kidnapping cases," Talon said, looking grim. "The kidnappers all said the same thing; _don't tell anyone_. But you don't keep _family_ in the dark about something like this," as he shook his head.

The phone squawked, significantly louder, "_Has Janine been kidnapped_?! _What about Alexander; is he all right_?"

David sighed and brought the phone back up to his ear. "Sorry, Renard; yes, they've both been kidnapped. They left your place last night but never arrived here; the kidnapper called me at eight o'clock last night to tell me he wants a hundred million dollars and a gargoyle head. Owen Burnett, the nanny Anne Marsden and the nanny's little girl Bethany were kidnapped as well. So far, the FBI has no solid leads. I brought the gargoyles back up from New Orleans to help search for them, but so far they've had no luck either…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Down in the room the FBI had taken over, the two agents on the day shift who had been assigned to the castle, traded resigned glances as they listened in on the conversation, and heard Xanatos' guest say 'kidnapping'. "So much for keeping the case quiet," Agent Hayes told Agent Colvin with a roll of his eyes.

"Hell, it's only a few hours ahead of schedule," Colvin shrugged. It was a truism that the kidnap cases that weren't kept quiet clear to the point of rescue or ransom, were broken to the media within twenty-four hours of the kidnapping. While Xanatos was actually way behind the curve for letting other family members know what had happened, given his high-profile status, they'd probably have reporters from every newspaper and TV station in New York City on the doorstep in less than an hour.

Hayes agreed as he went back to carefully scanning the videos that other agents had been bringing in for the last few hours. Videos that were labeled with the names and street numbers of the dozens of buildings and stores they had been acquired from, all along the limousine's two most probable routes between the Cyberbiotics Building and the Aerie Building. They'd been lucky so far in that none of the store managers and landlords the field agents spoken to, had demanded a search warrant before turning over the security tapes for their exterior cameras; just showing their FBI badges, asking politely and saying the tapes were needed for a criminal investigation and would be returned soon, had been all that was needed. It was fortunate indeed they were so cooperative; getting search warrants signed by judges took time, sometimes days, and time was always crucial in kidnapping cases.

They'd acquired and were watching all the tapes because most exterior security cameras covered more than just the sidewalk in front of the building; they covered part of the street past the sidewalk as well. Each tape had been rewound to the time mark of 5:15 PM last night, and would be played in hopes of catching a glimpse of a black limousine of the make and model that Xanatos used for his personal fleet, with the license plate numbers that he had supplied the agents with. They had confirmed already that the kidnapping had not happened at FAO Schwarz; security cameras there confirmed that Fox and Alexander Xanatos hadn't set foot in that building last night, and Owen Burnett, Anne Marsden and the nanny's daughter had left the store at 4:50 PM. Therefore, the kidnapping had occurred in transit between the Cyberbiotics Building and the Aerie Building. If they could trace the limousine's path with the security cameras and find out exactly where and when the kidnapping had occurred, they might be able to find more leads to the case.

But as Hayes popped in another tape and started the VCR again, he reflected sourly that the case's now-inevitable publicity was guaranteed to result in dozens if not hundreds of false leads being phoned into the local police stations, who would then try to horn in on the FBI's jurisdiction because this was their city; all in all making their case even harder. And of course there would be even more interruptions from the other family members and from other high-profile members of the community, all urging them to find the kidnap victims—as if they weren't doing their best already!

Then the agents overheard something that made them exchange incredulous glances. "…What was that about having gargoyles brought up from New Orleans? Did Xanatos actually _import more_ of those monsters?" Hayes said incredulously.

"Great. Press, local cops, and now gargoyles to deal with," Colvin shook his head. "Well, at least we can shoot the last bunch if they get in our way too much."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

One hour later, Talon was facing a crowd of assembled and anxious Labyrinth citizens. He took a deep breath, thinking to himself that if he was still on the force, and Captain Chavez knew what he was about to do, she'd bust his ass clear to Jersey. But even before he'd returned from the castle, word had already spread through the Labyrinth about the gargoyles' activity last night and about Anne and Bethany being missing; nothing flew faster than rumor.

"All right, everyone. I'm about to tell you something that must NOT be repeated anywhere else; nowhere outside the Labyrinth. Understand?" After everyone nodded, he told them about Anne, Bethany and the others being kidnapped. "The kidnapper said 'no police'. And when they say 'no police', they also mean 'no press'. This can't go to the newspapers, understand?"

"Why not?" Tyrone asked. "If they put it in the newspapers, then the whole city will be looking for them! And they'll be found that much sooner, right?"

"In theory, yeah, but it usually doesn't work out that way. What usually happens is you get dozens of false leads, usually from people who are honestly mistaken but sometimes from people who will say anything to get attention. Those false leads can keep the police too busy to fully investigate the _real_ leads that come in. And worse, sometimes the kidnappers panic at all the publicity and decide to just cut and run… and the 'cut' part of that is _cutting the kidnap victims' throats_. Kidnapping is a felony on a level with murder, so they figure they're not much worse off if they're caught, but if they kill their hostages and run before the police close in, then they might never be identified."

"But what can we do?" Elmer demanded. "You're not telling us to just sit down here on our thumbs, are you?!"

Talon shook his head. "Not by a long shot. What I want you people to do is go up top, look and listen. Go up dressed for scrounging, and be sure to collect any soda cans and bottles you find; that'll be your cover for your _real_ task, that of collecting information. Up top, you're the invisibles; the people that nearly everyone else would like to pretend don't exist. They usually try hard to ignore you… and that means that as long as you don't get too close, into what they think of as their territory or personal space, you can see and overhear a lot."

Talon continued, "At sunset, Claw and I are going to join the gargoyles in the castle on their search for the women and children. But in the meantime, it's up to you. Remember people, you are to look and listen _only_; don't do anything to risk yourselves! Kidnappers are also _killers_! If you see or hear anything about our missing people, do NOT try to rescue them yourselves; instead, you'll immediately return to the Labyrinth and pass on what you've heard. Is that clear?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

At the same time, elsewhere in the city, the Cyberbiotics building was in a mild uproar. Rumor had it that Halcyon Renard--a man who allowed only minimal Christmas decorations to be put up for the sake of company morale, and was well known for his scorn of the crass commercialism that invaded every aspect of the season—had thrown a thousand dollars in petty cash at one of his assistants, and told him to come back ASAP with a truckload of tinsel garlands and other Christmas decorations.

Then other orders had gone out… All four of the building's color printers were currently spitting out sheets of cardstock with "Merry Christmas!" and other colorful holiday slogans on them. Two office aides stood by each printer, grabbing the cards as fast as they came off the printer and slapping them between adhesive laminating sheets. Office Services and supply cabinets on every floor had been ransacked for every last box of laminating sheets and every roll of clear packing tape, and another employee had been sent out to buy more.

And in the cybot programming division, every phone had been put on "Do Not Disturb", but rumor had it that every last programmer had been pulled off whatever project they'd been on, to work on a new division project. Halcyon Renard himself had come down from the office to supervise the project, to make sure it went perfectly.

In response to the flurry of orders given out, no less than four different department managers called or went to visit Preston Vogel, Renard's personal aide who had remained behind in the executive office to handle routine business while Renard locked himself in with the programmers. They all had just one question: what was going on?

Preston Vogel had never been known to smile, so the grim expression on his face didn't particularly alarm anyone. But when he informed them that Mr. Renard's current project was time-sensitive, that the Cyberbiotic CEO was currently not accepting questions or feedback from employees on the project, and that further questions might result in the forfeiture of their Christmas bonuses… The managers decided they should just go back to their departments.

One hour later, all the ladies and gentlemen of the company's Party & Decorating Committee stepped back from their work in satisfaction. They still weren't entirely sure why they'd been ordered to do it, but they'd done it fast and done it well.

Halcyon Renard hit the switch, and with a resonating, throbbing hum of turbines powering up, four hundred of the company's hovering cybots slowly rose off the floor. They were draped all over with colorful tinsel garlands and placards that had been taped in place, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Renard hit another switch on his chair, and the giant skylights on the tenth floor opened outwards; the cybots rose in unison until they were clear of the building, then scattered to the four winds.

The cybots were ostensibly on a mission to spread Christmas cheer to every corner of Manhattan, by gliding over the crowds and past buildings with their signs and decorations. But down at the cybot control terminals, forty people were grimly settling in for a long stay, with pots of coffee and cases of Jolt cola.

They were the programmers and cybot operators that Halcyon Renard had selected as trustworthy enough to be told the real mission: to search every building in Manhattan and look in every window, using the cybots' scanners and infrared sensors, and to find five missing people who had been kidnapped the night before. Each cybot had been programmed to scan for the facial features of Owen Burnett, Janine Renard Xanatos or little Alexander Xanatos; computerized profiles had been made from images caught on the building's security tapes when they had visited in times past. No profiles could be made of Anne Marsden or her daughter Bethany, since they had never set foot inside the building to be caught on film. But the cybots were also programmed to scan for any human wearing a blindfold or hood over his/her head.

Swanson, the head of the team, had sworn to Renard that every terminal would be manned at all times. And any alert from a cybot that someone had been spotted who fit the search parameters, would be given a closer inspection and evaluation by a human operator. Swanson was a father himself, and he meant every word when he promised Renard, "If they can be seen through a window anywhere in Manhattan, we'll find them, sir."

"Good. Have no worries about lawsuits for invasion of privacy; that's what the company has lawyers for. We'll pay any fine the court orders, so long as my daughter and grandson are found!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Colvin and Hayes looked up from the map they were hunched over, when Mr. Xanatos walked into the room. "Mr. Xanatos, good timing. We were just about to call you."

"You have a lead?" Xanatos asked sharply.

"We have information that could develop into a lead, yes," Colvin said, beckoning the billionaire over to the map and the pins they'd drawn in it. "We retraced the limousine's path between the Cyberbiotics building and here, using glimpses of it passing just within range of storefront security cameras. We have confirmed sightings of the limousine up until 5:43 PM, when it passed in front of Franklin's Sporting Goods, right here," as he pointed to a gold-tipped pin set in the map about ten blocks away from the Aerie Building. "After that, it disappeared. We've checked tapes from all the working security cameras for two blocks surrounding that location, and there's no sign of it after that. However, the block straight ahead in the direction the limo was traveling had no operating security cameras trained on the street that night. One store's camera was just a dummy, but two more had cameras that had stopped working in the last 24 hours and hadn't been fixed yet."

"No video coverage of an entire block; what a convenient coincidence;" Xanatos said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Coincidences do happen sometimes, sir… but yes, we've made inquiries into why those two cameras weren't working," Hayes said. "One of them stopped working at 5:05 AM yesterday; last image recorded is of a nearly empty street, no one within fifteen feet of it. We have someone examining that setup now to determine why it stopped working. But with the other camera, we know exactly why it stopped recording images at 1:35 AM. Here are the last few images it took," Hayes said as he walked over to the VCR, rewound the tape in it for a few seconds and hit _Play_.

The TV monitor came to life, showing a black-and-white scene; a panoramic view of about twenty feet of sidewalk and the street running parallel to it. A tall man dressed in dark winter clothing with a ski mask over his face came slowly into view; the man's hands were at the bottom of the mask, as though he'd just pulled it down over his face. The masked man walked slowly up the sidewalk, nervously looking all around, until he stopped directly under the camera. The last few images the camera recorded were of the man pulling out a small spray can, and aiming it directly at the lens… then the screen went black.

"This camera is part of the security setup for Kleinman's Jewelers," Colvin told Xanatos. "And no, it hasn't been robbed in the last 24 hours. It's possible that it was about to be robbed, but the burglar lost his nerve or was otherwise kept from stealing anything there, by circumstances we're not aware of yet. But it's also possible that whoever spray-painted the lens black had no intention of robbing the jewelers; that it was part of the setup for kidnapping your wife and son. That's the theory we're working with now, and why we're looking to find this man and bring him in for questioning."

"Given he was wearing a ski mask, there's not a lot to go on," Hayes added. "But we have his height, his general weight, and the little skin that's showing though the mask says he's Caucasian. A Caucasian with almost no chin; see how the ski mask slopes down from his mouth? Five feet eight inches, weight approximately one hundred sixty pounds, and nearly chinless…" Hayes looked at Xanatos, not really hoping but asking anyway, "Does that ring any bells for you?"

Xanatos slowly shook his head. "Doesn't resemble any acquaintance that I'm aware of."

Hayes shrugged. "It was a long shot. Anyway, judging by the nervous behavior he exhibited on tape, this man probably isn't the brains of the operation, whether an aborted jewel heist or the kidnapping. But if we can find him, we'll find out who he's working for."

"So you know when, roughly where, and you have a possible lead on who," Xanatos said. "What about _how_? Armored limousines don't just vanish into thin air."

"That part, we haven't determined yet," Hayes admitted. "But the most likely explanation is that the limousine was driven up inside a larger vehicle, like a moving van, and taken away by the kidnappers. We'll be going back over the tapes to determine if any such vehicles drove through that suspect block at the right time. We've determined that no moving vans were following the limo, but one could have driven onto the suspect block from this intersection," as he tapped a spot on the map. "Also, we need to wait for a judge to sign a search warrant for one holdout. There's one store on this block, this side of the street, that hasn't turned its security tapes over to us yet…"

Xanatos pulled out his cell phone. "They will. What's the name of the store?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

At one o'clock in the afternoon, Matt Bluestone was usually sound asleep in his apartment. Today, however, he was walking through the doors of the 23rd Precinct and trudging for his desk. "Can't sleep; might as well work," was all he said tersely to whomever asked him what he was doing there at that hour. Which wasn't quite true; Matt had gotten a few hours of sleep. But not a restful sleep, and after waking up from the second nightmare, he'd opted to just get out of bed instead of taking a sleeping aid.

After dropping his coat off at his desk, he made a beeline for the coffeepot. The precinct's coffee was notoriously low-grade, but at least it had plenty of caffeine. Schofield in Vice and Feldman in Homicide were at the coffeepot too, gossiping while adding enough sugar to their coffee to make it semi-tolerable.

"Hey, what's that I overheard about more bodies being found in the river?" Schofield asked Feldman as he dumped in a packet of creamer.

Feldman grimaced, probably as much due to the coffee he'd just sipped as to Schofield's question. "Yeah. Right after bringing up the seventh John Doe from last week's anonymous tip, one of the divers went back down and came up with another corpse. Said he'd spotted it about ten feet away from where the last corpse had come to rest, after drifting downriver a ways. I swear, the city needs to fork over enough dough to line all the docks with security cameras, and hire someone to monitor them all night. Seems like about half the killers in New York use the river for disposal."

Almost despite himself, Matt took an interest in the conversation. He knew about the anonymous tip Feldman referred to, because he knew who had phoned it in; Xanatos, at Anne's request. She hadn't wanted the families of the Quarrymen who'd murdered Brentwood, and who had been killed in retaliation by Delilah, to go on forever wondering whether their men were dead or alive.

In the phone tip, 'Anonymous' had said he'd witnessed seven bodies being thrown into the river but had thought there might actually have been eight, as he'd "heard a double splash once." None of the gargoyles or their allies knew exactly what had happened to the eighth Quarryman, the one who had fled the scene of the massacre. But since he'd never reported back to Castaway or the media with the truth of what had happened that night, there was a slim chance that he had also been killed somehow, and dumped in the river by somebody else. Matt said to Feldman, "So there were actually eight bodies dumped instead of seven, like the tipster thought?"

"Nope; this last one's a different case. The seven John Does from the tip were all stripped naked, and they were all shot to death, except for the next-to-last one; that one looked like a grenade had gone off in his hands. This one was wrapped in plastic trash bags, and still wearing clothes under that. And instead of being shot to death, his throat was crushed—and I mean _crushed_, like an empty beer can. And in the water a lot longer, too; it'll be up to Forensics to determine how long, but the diver's report estimated at least a couple months."

"Throat crushed like a beer can?" Matt asked sharply.

"Yep; got the preliminary photos on my desk. Nobody can do that kind of damage with his bare hands, I'll tell you that. Nobody human, anyway… soon as Forensics gives their report, I'll be turning a copy over to you."

Matt nodded in acknowledgment and got his coffee, sighing inwardly as he returned to his desk. It wouldn't surprise him at all to find out Demona had dumped a body or two into the East River. But at least she wasn't in town to kill any more New Yorkers; it might be callous of him, but as far as he was concerned, Japan could _keep_ that immortal psychopath.

But now that the Quarryman who'd been killed by an exploding Quarryhammer had been found, Matt could do something about helping to identify the bodies. He made a trip down to the medical examiner's office, ostensibly to make better copies of the photos from a file on one of the Quarrymen who'd been killed in that rooftop battle with Demona and the out-of-towner gargoyles last November. And while he was down there, he told one of the medical examiners, "Hey, if you get any bodies in here that look like a grenade went off on them, ask for background checks to determine if they're Quarrymen, okay? And send me an email if they are. The DA is gathering evidence to prove to the ATF that those Quarryhammers are deadly weapons that they ought to require special licenses to carry. There's been speculation that they can explode like grenades if they're mishandled."

Actually, Matt had no idea whether the DA was putting together any such case for the ATF (_the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives—ye author_), whose many duties included the federal regulation of firearms and explosives. But he figured that if they weren't, then they really should be, before some kid died from a lethal shock after playing with his daddy's Quarryhammer.

The medical examiner looked at him oddly. "Quarryhammers exploding, eh? It just so happens we got a body in here yesterday that shows evidence of an explosion at close quarters."

"Yeah? We got a name for the victim?" Matt asked innocently.

"Not yet. But wasn't there a group of Quarrymen that went missing just after Thanksgiving, that haven't been found yet?"

The medical examiner returned to his work and Matt returned to the precinct, satisfied that he'd nudged the case in the right direction. That little nudge was all he dared give, but once they'd identified one of the men as a Quarrymen, they'd probably be able to match corpses with names for the rest.

Two hours later, Matt looked up from his work to see Feldman approaching his desk with a file folder, looking grim. "Here's the first one, from that case I talked to you about earlier. There'll be more coming in a little while."

Matt looked askance at Feldman. "More coming?"

"Yep. Divers went back down and found three more bodies wrapped in plastic, all dumped in the same area. Dumped at different times, too, judging by how much debris had drifted over some of them. And the first one pulled up has been ID'd already; Joseph Elkhorn, reported missing in September. Looks like they found the disposal site for a super-strong serial killer…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

The afternoon newspapers all had news of the Quarrymen's base of operations being destroyed. The New York Sun's headline read "**Quarrymen Receive Shattering Blow".**

There were also articles about the previous night's other gargoyle activities, with headlines reading "**Home Invasions By Gargoyles", "Gargoyles Rampaging Inside Homes**" and similar themes. Castaway gripped his copy of the New York Times till his knuckles were white. "Those monsters broke into our men's _**homes**_! They threatened their _families_; their _**children**_!"

"Broke in, terrorized… but according to these accounts, they didn't kill anyone," Oliver Grimm said as he perused his own paper. "Not yet, anyway…" He tossed his paper back onto the coffee table in disgust as he glared at Castaway. "_**Why**_ didn't you keep a backup of your Quarrymen roster?!"

"I _**did**_ keep a backup!" Castaway was nearly purple with frustrated rage. "Every file on the computer was backed up on disks and locked up with a printed copy in the hidden safe in the office! But I wasn't expecting the beasts to _blow up our entire base of operations__**!**_"

By the time Castaway had reached the warehouse—or what remained of it, the fire trucks had already arrived and started working on containing the fire before it spread. The captured Quarrymen had just been found in the building across the street, by police who had accompanied the fire crews; Castaway arrived there just as Lieutenant Martinez had been cut free of his bonds… in time to hear the lieutenant and four of his men resign from the Quarrymen on the spot.

Castaway had waited numbly in an office that had been commandeered by the police for conducting an on-the-spot investigation; sat there and listened as his supposedly brave and loyal Quarrymen turned into gibbering wrecks as they described their collective ordeal. Listened, and in his turn answered what questions he dared answer, as the police and the NYFD arson investigator grilled him about just what had been in the Quarrymen's warehouse to cause such a massive explosion, and why the gargoyles had attacked in force that night.

He'd been as cooperative with the authorities as he could without compromising crucial secrets, knowing that if the police had decided he was holding back information, and took him to a precinct for further questioning—if someone recognized him from police sketches made of the Hunters, or if he was fingerprinted and those prints compared to others on record—his Jon Castaway identity would be torn to shreds, and Jon Canmore would likely spend a very long time in a jail cell.

Eventually Castaway had finally managed to convince the police and the arson investigator that the Quarrymen had absolutely nothing to do with any supposed kidnapping—really, were they going to take a _gargoyle_'s ranting as evidence that any sort of crime had taken place? He'd also managed to convince them that the gargoyles must have brought high-yield explosives with them, and that the only accelerant in the building had been the fuel for the helicopter that they had all the appropriate licenses for. And after the fire had been put out, he'd been allowed to accompany the fire chief on a cautious inspection of the gutted warehouse, to see if anything could be salvage. But nothing was salvageable, not even the contents of the hidden safe.

The gargoyles hadn't discovered the safe's hiding place under the floorboards of the office, which was right over the room used for communications with Quarrymen in the field. But even fireproof safes have their limits. When the explosion had ripped through the walls, the wooden supports had burned through in the fire, and the entire office structure had fallen twelve feet down to the concrete floor below… the safe's metal covering and fireproof ceramic lining had cracked while the fire was still raging, and the contents of the safe had been turned to heaps of melted plastic and paper ashes.

Castaway explained about the safe to Grimm, but Grimm only replied in a voice dripping with scorn, "I meant _**off-site**_ backups; kept well away from the main operations, in case of disasters like this! Didn't your family's long history of hunting gargoyles teach you the importance of not keeping all your eggs in one basket?"

Castaway fumed in silence, because Grimm was right; over the centuries, his family had learned well the importance of 'offsite backups'. Canmore children were raised by their mothers, while their fathers--or aunts, when a Canmore generation spawned no men who were capable of being Hunters--were off hunting gargoyles in other countries. Jon had seen his father less than a dozen times in his childhood, before their mother had died suddenly from a stroke and Charles Canmore had to return from the Hunt long enough to find them another caretaker.

Jason, Robyn and Jon had been en route with their father, traveling from Scotland to the home of a second cousin in Switzerland when, after not being seen for nearly sixty years, Charles had received a reliable report that the Demon had been spotted in Paris. The opportunity to rid the world of the Demon once and for all had been too much to pass up; Charles had taken his children with him to Notre Dame, telling them he would fulfill his family's destiny… but instead, he'd only filled a coffin.

"All right then, no backup of a full Quarrymen roster," Grimm said with an irritated wave of his hand. "What about your own memory?"

Castaway stared at Grimm. "Before last night, the Quarrymen numbered nearly a thousand strong, with at least two dozen people signed up at just the last meeting! Could you seriously expect anyone to remember that many names?!" He shook his head as he continued, "We'll have to put an ad in the papers to gather everyone together, after we rent a meeting hall…"

"Don't be stupid," Grimm said harshly. "I don't expect you to remember everyone, but I _**do**_ expect you to remember the names of your lieutenants and squad leaders! People you hand-picked for those positions!" He rummaged in his nearby desk for a pad of paper and pen, and tossed them at Castaway as he ordered, "Start making a list of every name you can recall. Once we have a list of names, we'll work on finding addresses and phone numbers…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Mitchell Starsky had a fairly memorable name, thanks to an old 70's TV show. He'd grown up with other kids calling him "Starsky the Mitch," and congratulating themselves on being such clever punks. Thanks to his parents' poor choices in naming him, he'd decided at an early age that he would never, ever be a policeman (or date a girl with the last name of Hutchinson.) Instead, he'd joined the Army, where he'd risen to the rank of Sergeant while taking college courses that the Army had paid for. And after he'd finished his second hitch and gotten out to become an architect, the Quarrymen had found his military skills useful and paid him well as a Squad Leader.

As Mitchell read the stories of what had happened in the evening papers, he recognized some of the names mentioned in the gargoyle home invasions as fellow Quarrymen. Harrison Worley was a lieutenant… there were a helluva lot of Joneses in New York, probably more than a dozen men named Ted Jones, but the Ted Jones he knew was a fellow squad leader. Damn, this was bad…

He tossed his paper aside, as his wife came out of the bedroom asking him to help zip up her dress. "Change of plans, honey," he said tersely.

"What? …Mitchell, you are _not_ backing out of this dinner party!" Natalie scolded him. "I know what you think of Jerry and Christine, and I frankly agree with you about Christine, but Christmas is a time for setting aside our differences, for at least a few hours! Besides, the sitter will be here in just a few minutes, and I already called for the taxi!"

Mitchell nodded in acknowledgment as he headed for the desk drawer where he kept an emergency stash of cash, and peeled off a twenty. "And when the sitter shows up, we'll give her this and thank her for her time. But right now I need you to pack overnight bags for the kids…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Maggie gave her husband a fierce hug. "You be careful, okay?"

"We will, honey," Derek said as he hugged her back, but with a hug more careful than fierce; taking her growing belly into consideration.

Still clinging to him, Maggie sighed. "I'd still rather you waited to leave until after sunset. We were lucky that no one saw you out gliding this morning; going out in broad daylight _twice_ in one day…"

"The broad daylight is currently a solid gray overcast," Derek pointed out. "Not much a view, so most people aren't going to be looking out their windows. And if we're going to be a part of the search, we need to be there when the gargoyles wake up. Those guys aren't going to hang around the castle shooting the breeze and waiting for the FBI to turn up something; not when their people are missing."

Maggie agreed that wasn't likely for gargoyles, and Derek continued, "You've got the castle's phone number; call with _any_ information our folks find out on the streets. Xanatos said one of the new gargoyles, Martha, stays behind to relay information to gargoyles in the field. And remember, when 'the kids' wake up and ask what's going on, tell them they need to stay down here and help protect you and Junior, here," as he gently caressed her belly and their growing child within, "from being kidnapped too! They'll need a job to do, to keep them inside." And after one last hug and kiss, he turned and beckoned to Claw, who'd been hugging and signing a conversation with his wife Dana. Claw nodded, and the two mutates left for the surface together.

Talon and Claw got airborne as soon as they were able, and glided to the castle on a roundabout, cautious course, staying low over rooftops and avoiding open spaces; even with the gray overcast sky, it was best to avoid areas where they were more apt to be seen. On their way to the castle they passed a bizarre sight; a flying golden robot that was draped with silver and green tinsel garlands and sporting a sign that read "Happy Holidays!" The robot was currently hovering outside an apartment building, slowly descending as it passed by the windows. They could hear a child's high-pitched voice calling excitedly from inside one of the apartments: "Mommy, look! It's a Christmas Transformer!"

"One of Cyberbiotics' cybots, probably," Talon said in response to Claw's questioning look. "On a search pattern; it's probably equipped with visual and infrared scanners. I was there when Xanatos told their CEO about the kidnapping; stands to reason he'd be using his resources to look for them too."

_Why_? Claw signed to him, then gave a start as he apparently remembered some details from the mutates' stay at the Aerie Building, before they found out that Xanatos had not actually been appalled at their mutation by Sevarius; that he'd been the one to order it done! Claw signed to him, _Fox daughter_?

"That's right. Which makes Alexander his grandson. And there ain't a grandpa alive who'll just sit back and do nothing when he knows his grandkid's in trouble…"

They arrived at the castle with a few minutes to spare before sunset. Xanatos came out onto the castle battlements just as they arrived and told them, "Thanks for coming. Even if you're doing this just for Anne and Bethany, I still appreciate it."

Claw shook his head and vigorously signed a response to Xanatos, and Talon interpreted for him, "We're not just here for Anne and Bethany. Kidnapping is wrong no matter who the criminals take! Even if we still don't quite trust you, we'll do everything we can to help you get your son and your wife back too. Which reminds me, there's someone else out looking for them…"

Talon told Xanatos about the cybot they'd seen on their way to the castle, as they made their way inside to the great hall. There they met Elisa and Matt Bluestone, who were looking as grim as they felt.

"Glad you're helping out, Derek," Elisa said as she gave her brother a hug. "How's Maggie?"

"She's fine, but staying behind for obvious reasons. So all the new folks here are from New Orleans, right?" he asked as he looked over her shoulder at the small assembly of gargoyle statues in the middle of the great hall.

Elisa said they were and began to name them for him, but sunset came and the gargoyles awoke with roars and stone shells bursting apart before she had gotten to more than three of them. Once they'd awoken, Brooklyn and a New Orleans gargoyle named Adam took over the introductions.

After introductions were over, Talon said to Brooklyn, "With Goliath gone, you're in charge of the clan again, right? So what's the game plan for tonight? Xanatos gave me the broad strokes earlier, but he didn't have all the details. And when do we start?"

"We don't start for another hour yet," Brooklyn replied while pulling off the bandages that had been on his right arm, to reveal unmarred brick-red skin underneath. "And I'd planned on four teams of searchers, but with you and Claw coming too, we can make that five teams. Come look at this map of the city we drew up last night," as he gestured towards a table at one side of the hall.

Talon blinked in surprise. "Waiting an hour? I told Maggie you'd be going off to search again as soon as you shook the gravel off."

"And believe me, we want to!" Brooklyn retorted. "But we need to wait until full dark, and until most of the rush hour traffic has cleared off the streets. We're hitting each place hard and fast, but Dracon's men are apt to hit back just as hard, and we need to keep down the number of innocent bystanders who're apt to get in harm's way."

Talon joined Brooklyn, Adam, Elisa, Matt and Xanatos at the table where a giant map of Manhattan was laid out, but before Brooklyn had pointed out more than two of their targets, the phone nearby rang. Talon hurriedly explained to Brooklyn and Xanatos about the Labyrinth people out on the streets, gathering information, and his heart sped up at the thought of one of them having overheard some vital clue to the victims' whereabouts already.

But when Xanatos answered the phone, after listening for a few seconds, he handed the phone over to Talon with a twisted smile. "Maggie says no clues yet, but she needs to talk to you..."

His ears laid back in embarrassment, Talon took the phone. "What is it, Maggie?"

"I'm glad you haven't left the castle yet, because you've got three more searchers coming out to help," Maggie said in a rueful tone. "Malibu, Burbank and Hollywood are on their way now."

"What? Oh, great… Didn't you tell them I wanted them to protect you and the baby from being kidnapped too?"

"I did! I even told them that since the kidnappers were taking mothers and children, even Delilah and the egg inside her could be a target in need of protecting! But Malibu went charging off into the northern tunnels… and he came back with a shotgun and a box of shells! Derek, where did he get a shotgun?!"

"Damifino, honey; did you take it away from him?!"

"He gave it to Delilah before I could grab it, and then Delilah checked it and loaded it--and she did it so fast, like a seasoned professional; I keep forgetting what Thailog trained them to do before he died…" Maggie sighed heavily. "And now she's standing guard outside our rooms, ready to blow holes in any stranger that comes down here, and the boys are on their way to the castle."

And after Talon had ruefully relayed all that to Brooklyn, the gargoyle half-smiled and said, "Yep, they're gargoyles all right. Should've figured they'd come out to help; even if they don't live in the Labyrinth anymore, Anne and Bethany are _**clan**_ to them."

"But they're just kids inside!"

"Kids inside_ adult bodies_," Brooklyn reminded him. "Who know the basics of fighting, thanks to Thailog, and they sure know how to follow orders. With them along, we could make even more effective teams. Before, I'd figured that you and Claw would have to stay together so you could interpret for him if need be, because none of us know sign language yet. But Hudson said once that the clones were learning to sign a lot faster than they were learning to read; are they fluent in sign language now?"

"Reasonably fluent," Talon admitted. "They actually picked it up faster than most adults do."

"Good. So we can put you and Claw on separate teams, so long as the other team has a clone on it; that'll be two teams with electrical powers that could come in handy." After mulling it over for a moment, Brooklyn announced, "With them along, we can make six teams of three each, with one team having four. Six teams to hit our targets, search for our missing people and, if they're not there, get out before the gangs can recover. And taking one gang member on the way out of each place, to interrogate for information about the kidnapping."

"Interrogate how, exactly?" Talon asked.

"First, we just growl at them and say we're hungry, but we won't eat their faces off if they tell us about the kidnapping. You just would not believe how many of the Quarrymen we fought last night thought we were going to kill and eat them! It's sick, I know, but tonight I say we make their fear work for us." Brooklyn continued, "And if they're long-time Dracon gang members who've already figured out that we don't eat people, then we play 'catch' with them for a little while. Isabel came up with the idea last night; we take them up high and drop them a ways, then whoever catches them at the bottom takes them up again for more, until the criminals are sick as dogs and begging us to stop. Then we tell them we don't stop until they tell us everything they know about the kidnapping."

Talon's felinoid mouth twisted wryly. "Yep, that'll make most people spill their guts. Just about literally."

Brooklyn gave a grim smile in return. "And if they tell us something useful, we call in the other teams to investigate the new lead. If not, we move on to the next known gang hangout. We're going to coordinate our raids to happen simultaneously whenever possible; the idea that we're organized and therefore intelligent seems to scare people even more. I'm figuring roughly an hour per raid; five minutes to rip through each place, half an hour to interrogate afterwards, then twenty to twenty-five minutes to glide to the next hangout and get in place for the next raid. If the questioning takes longer that anticipated for the first round, then we'll increase it to an hour and a half per raid."

"And how many Dracon gang hangouts and hidey-holes have you identified?" Talon asked.

"Twenty-seven," Elisa answered for Brooklyn. "I brought them every address I could pull up, from the files of not just the 23rd Precinct, but every precinct in Manhattan."

Brooklyn nodded. "With six teams instead of four, we can cover a lot more ground. But it's still going to be a long night…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

**10.5.1: They Also Serve**

While the humans and the other gargoyles discussed their battle plans, Martha quietly slipped out of the great hall, after giving Broadway an affectionate rubbing of knuckles on his brow ridges and scalp. "I'll be in the security room," Martha told her mate.

Her mate… even after being mated for five nights now, Martha could still hardly believe it. She'd been so sure that beautiful, graceful Angela had a firm grip on Broadway's heart, until that kiss in the middle of her kitchen…

In the middle of the kitchen for the New Orleans Clan, that is. She still had a hard time believing that, too; that she was a member of a new clan, now. A new clan, in a new protectorate; one that she'd only seen on TV or read about in books.

Ever since she'd realized that she would be leaving her nice comfortable home behind, to go live in a faraway castle that was essentially in the middle of a battlefield, Martha had been outwardly smiling but inwardly running in circles and screaming in panic. And in truth, she'd been very relieved when Broadway had decided that it would be better all around if he stayed in New Orleans for a few more months instead of going back to Manhattan with his rookery brothers. She sort-of suspected that Broadway had sensed her quiet freakout, and had made his decision partly to make things easier for her, but had been too embarrassed to actually ask him about it.

But then, not even a full night and day after Broadway had told Goliath and Adam about their staying in New Orleans, they'd learned about the kidnapping. And as soon as Brooklyn had told everyone, Martha had taken one look at Broadway's face and known that he was going back to New York ASAP, even if he had to glide all the way there under his own power, lame wing and all. Children of his clan were in danger; of course he was going back!

And Martha had vowed in that instant that she'd be going with him. They were mates now, for better or for worse; in sickness and in health, et cetera et cetera, until death parted them. It was time for her to be brave and put on a cheerfully determined front, even if what she'd really wanted to do at that moment was take Broadway and hide with him in the kitchen larder until the whole thing was over.

So she'd left everything--her entire life up to that moment--behind in New Orleans as she boarded first the truck, then the plane to New York. And Broadway… once they'd arrived, Broadway became… more alert, vibrant, more _alive_ than he'd been in New Orleans. It was as if Manhattan wasn't just his home, but his purpose in life. Up until they'd arrived at the castle, part of Martha had secretly entertained the hope that after the kidnapping crisis was over, Broadway would turn around and go back to New Orleans with her. But after seeing the change in him, she knew he'd never go back to New Orleans to live… and so, neither would she.

And that meant that this castle, with its bizarre combination of medieval furnishings and high-tech equipment, was her home now. Her home for the rest of her life, so she'd better get used to it. At least the kitchen was equipped with modern appliances instead of medieval ones, even if the pantries and larder weren't organized to her liking. She wondered whether Broadway or a human cook had organized the kitchen, and if they'd be amenable to her making suggestions on rearranging things for more efficiency.

The security room was, to her way of thinking, an example of how too much money can warp a human's brain into paranoid delusions. Imagine creating a room for spying on people _in your own home_! That just screamed a complete lack of trust in anybody, possibly even David Xanatos' own family. But she had to admit that the spying capability was coming in handy right now… and it would be even more useful if the FBI people that she was monitoring came up with a solid lead the gargoyles could follow, instead of just eliminating potential suspects.

And, being a writer, she was taking mental notes of everything she saw and heard the FBI agents do, from the law enforcement jargon they used when talking amongst themselves to the controls on their equipment. Martha had no intention of moving her 'Gumshoe Gumbo' characters Herbert and Irmina from New Orleans to New York, but perhaps in her next novel they might get entangled with the Louisiana offices of the FBI…

Still thinking about Herbert and Irmina, Martha reached the security room… and paused when she saw someone was in there already. A tall man with rugged features and a trace of silver in his crew-cut brown hair, who stood up when he saw her. But his expression was more curious than alarmed, so after that moment's hesitation she walked on in with a careful smile (keeping her fangs covered) and introduced herself. "I'm Martha. What's your name, if I may ask?"

"Jonathan Jameson. But you can call me 'JJ', if you prefer; my friends call me that," as the man held his hand out with a smile.

Martha shook his hand gladly, as her smile became genuine. "JJ, then. And I certainly hope we become friends. I'm assuming you work here?"

"Yes, ma'am; I'm part of the day shift security for the castle, and this is my post. I'm due to clock off in a few minutes… and I'm assuming you're about to clock on?" as he looked at her shrewdly.

"Er... yes, after a fashion. Are you aware of what happened here yesterday?" she asked.

"More or less, yes. No one saw fit to brief me, but when there's no sign of Mr. Xanatos' wife, son or personal aide anywhere in the castle, or any sign of the nanny and her daughter, and FBI agents have been going in and out of the castle all day… not to mention finding over a dozen gargoyles in the great hall, and over half of them strangers, when I did the routine camera check this morning… It wasn't hard to figure out that they've been kidnapped," JJ said, his face grim.

"Yes. Their kidnapper asked for a hundred million dollars, and a…" Martha hesitated again.

"And a gargoyle's head on a silver platter?" JJ asked. But it wasn't really a question, and his hand flicked a switch to bring a monitor to life, showing the castle battlements… and the stone head that resembled Hudson in plain view.

"Yes," Martha admitted. "That one's a fake, but we're hoping it will fool the kidnapper into thinking Mr. Xanatos is complying with his demands, while we keep searching for his victims."

"And by that 'we', you're referring to your fellow gargoyles, not the FBI. And Brooklyn or your clan leader assigned you to keep an eye on the FBI, didn't he?"

Martha was startled. "H-how did you… Oh. You watched the security tapes from last night, didn't you?"

JJ nodded. "After noticing a few little things. Such as the notepad you used for taking notes on the FBI's activities last night. Your pages of notes were removed, but did anyone ever show you the trick of rubbing a pencil tip over impressions to make the previous page's writing readable?"

Martha chuckled. "I've actually used that trick a time or two, in the stories I write. It's not that we think the FBI aren't to be trusted; it's just that as legal authorities, they have to get search warrants and find probable cause and such… and that may all be necessary for getting convictions in court, but we only care about getting the people back alive."

"So you're listening in and waiting for them to find a solid lead, that you gargoyles can act on before they can," JJ said with a nod. "Good. So you'll be wanting these," as he handed over a notepad. The same notepad she'd been using the night before, but when she'd left the security room to go help Broadway fix a meal for everyone, she'd taken the pages covered with writing with her. The pad now had several more pages covered in writing; writing almost like a logbook, with the time of day recorded next to each entry.

"You… took notes on them for us during the day?" Martha asked as she read the pages. She'd been thinking she would have to spend a lot of time rewinding the tapes and writing down what she saw and heard, in between stretches of writing down what the agents were doing in real-time. JJ had saved her hours of work!

"Yep. Gave me something to do, besides worry," JJ said with a shrug, acting like it was nothing. But it was much more than nothing, and Martha was indeed grateful and told him so. But JJ again shrugged, deflecting the compliments, while digging into a drawer and pulling out a headset. "Here, you might find this useful. Plug this receiver into here, flip this switch there, and you'll hear everything in the FBI room on the headset. And the headset has a fifty-foot range, even through walls; with this on, you can roam the castle without missing anything. The headset batteries are fully charged, and it'll last about eight hours between charges."

"Thank you again, JJ; this is really helpful!" Martha said earnestly.

JJ shook his head. "Just doing what I can, Martha." He looked over and nodded towards a chair by the wall. "The nanny, Anne Marsden, comes down here and sits in that chair sometimes, keeping company with me while the kids are napping. And when she was doing holiday baking, she brought me plates of cookies and such. For the last baking, just yesterday morning, she let her daughter carry the tray in while she carried the hot cocoa. Bethany was so careful, you'd have thought it was the crown jewels she was carrying, and we had cookies and cocoa while Bethany told me all about Santa Claus…" And JJ choked to a stop, rubbing at his eyes.

Martha laid her taloned hand gently on his arm. "We'll find them, JJ. I swear, one way or another, we'll find them and get them back…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

All the other gargoyles in the castle were out on the battlements when the three cloned gargoyles arrived. Brooklyn greeted them formally. "Clear skies to you tonight, Malibu, Burbank and Hollywood. Have you come to join in the search for the kidnap victims?"

"Yes, and you can't make us go back down!" Malibu said, glaring at both Brooklyn and Talon. "Delilah guards Maggie, keeps her and the babies in their tummies safe. But Anne and Bethany are _important_! They, they're…"

"They're _**clan**_," Brooklyn filled in for him. "And you'd fight to the death for them; believe me, I understand. They're clan for us, too… and so is everyone else who was kidnapped. We can search the city more effectively if we work together; that's why Talon and Claw are here. And working together in this operation means accepting one gargoyle as leader, and following his orders. As the second-in-command of the Manhattan Clan, I lead the clan in Goliath's absence." Brooklyn finished with a formal, "So I ask you three: will you accept me as leader tonight?"

After exchanging quick glances between themselves, all three nodded their heads as Burbank said, "Tonight, you are leader."

Brooklyn nodded his acceptance, then quickly introduced them to the New Orleans gargoyles and vice versa. Once everyone had been introduced, Brooklyn said, "We'll be breaking up into three-person and four-person teams for tonight's operation. Burbank, you'll go with Claw, Martin and Cecelia; in addition to fighting, you'll act as Claw's interpreter if he has something to say. Hollywood, you'll come with me and Isabel. Malibu, you're with Broadway and Etienne. Talon will be with Lucretia and Cassius. Adam will lead Lucy and Erasmus. And Lexington, Rebecca and Robert will make the final team. Team leaders, check your maps and your equipment one more time; we head out in five!"

_To be continued in_: _**Shakedown**_


	6. Shakedown

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

**10.6: Shakedown**

As a businessman needs to be aware of what's going on in the business world, Thailog always started his evening by reading the Wall Street Journal. But he also read the New York Sun and New York Times, as the stock market was often affected by seemingly non-business-related matters.

That evening, the articles appearing in all three newspapers gave him several chuckles. His ransom demand for the head of a gargoyle was having marvelous results! The gargoyles had obviously heard of it, and assumed that the gargoyle-hating Quarrymen were behind the kidnapping; they'd not only invaded and destroyed the Quarrymen's base of operations, but done home invasions as well! All the public relations efforts that had been made by the clan and that foolishly idealistic group the People of Interspecies Tolerance, were being washed from the public mind in a flood of terror and hatred as a result of their actions. The NY Times editor was screaming louder than ever for the governor to send the National Guard in against the gargoyles, in the interests of public safety.

The New York Sun, on the other hand, had done a bit more investigating than the Times and the Journal, or at least decided more facts were relevant in their reporting. The Sun's articles noted that all the home invasions had occurred in the homes of high-ranking Quarrymen, and that the gargoyles had been searching for and demanding information about victims of a kidnapping. The editorial article on the gargoyles expressed disapproval of 'vigilante action', stating that the public was better served by leaving such matters to official law enforcement… but did not make it clear whether they were referring to the Quarrymen as vigilantes, or the gargoyles.

Thailog frowned and made note of the editor's name, as a target for eliminating soon. And that body would be left out for discovery by the neighbors, instead of being disposed in the river. Anti-gargoyle hysteria suited his purposes more than an atmosphere of cautious semi-tolerance; better that the clan spend all their time fighting the public for sheer survival, than nosing into his business.

Then he set the newspapers aside and got to work. He switched the shock delivery system for Owen Burnett's cell from 'automatic' to 'manual', noting the timer's readout that only three minutes had passed since the last electrical shock. And he said into the microphone, "Ready to swear your oath to me, Puck? Ready to begin that one year of service?"

Seen on the monitor, Owen Burnett shook his head. The man sat in a yoga position, with his hands on his thighs and his bare feet crossed and tucked above his knees, in an attempt to keep any bare flesh from contacting the metal floor. An ultimately futile effort; Thailog had already determined that the clothes he was wearing were insufficient to insulate him from the shocks, or he would have been left naked in the cell. Or perhaps he was meditating in an attempt to ignore and withstand the torture… Thailog pressed the button, and chuckled as Owen jerked in obvious reaction to the shock coursing through him. No, some things just couldn't be ignored.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

David Xanatos watched from the battlements as the gargoyles left the castle in teams of three or four, gliding in different directions. And he once more suppressed the impulse to put on his power armor and go out with them, actively searching for his family.

It was so damn frustrating, to just stand and wait! But a good businessman learned early on that he couldn't do everything himself. In order to succeed, one found the people who were best suited for doing the job, ensured they were properly motivated, and delegated the work to them.

The FBI was best suited for the official investigation, and the gargoyles and Renard's cybots were best suited for the vigilante investigating. All he could do was provide them with all the support they needed, in terms of equipment and contacts, and wait for results.

But once he had those results, he would go into action. When one set of investigators came up with a definite location for where Fox and Alexander were being held against their will, he'd go there himself and do whatever was necessary to get them back… from showering the place with 100-dollar bills, to vaporizing anything or anyone who stood in his way. And when they came up with a name for the kidnapper or kidnappers…

There would be no trial. He couldn't afford for the kidnap case to go to trial; couldn't take a chance on the kidnappers stating in court that they'd taken precautions against Fey interference from Puck, and why the precautions had been necessary. As a 'severely distraught' father, he probably wouldn't get more than a slap on the wrist from the authorities, if he killed the kidnappers while rescuing his family. And if someone else arrested them beforehand… he had his moles in the police department, and he had the names of several hardened criminals that he'd met during his six months in prison, who would do many unsavory things in return for creature comforts that would make their life sentences more tolerable. Every criminal involved in the kidnapping would die before trial, one way or another.

But in the meantime, all he could do was wait. He went back inside, to see if the FBI had uncovered any new leads in the two hours since he'd last checked on them. Then he'd contact the Grandmaster again, to see if the Illuminati would be useful to him after all.

David had already been refused access to the Illuminati's All-Seeing Eye, which would have found him his wife and child within minutes if he'd been able to master it (instead of being instantly driven insane by it, as had happened to the last twelve users.) And with Mace Malone still in a catatonic state after being pulled out of the Hotel Cabal last year, they'd lost their liaison for the criminal underworld of New York. But in their last conversation, the Grandmaster had said he would contact some members of the Veritas sect, those members of the Illuminati who embraced the truth of mankind's base nature and delighted in 'dirty work'. After John Gabriel's untimely demise back in 1989 and Malloy Davidson moving his operations to California in 1992, there were no Veritas sect members living in New York, but Malloy was sure to have some old contacts in his address books…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"Is everyone in position? Broadway?"

"Ready and waiting!"

"Lexington?"

"Almost there, two more blocks; ETA another minute."

"Talon?"

"Ready when you are, Brooklyn."

"Adam?"

"We'll be above the address right… now. In position, and ready."

"Martin?"

"We're ready to rock-n-roll!"

"Wait just a bit more… Lex?"

"We're here. And we're ready; give the word, Brooklyn…"

"The word is **GO!**"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Paulie had been with Dracon's gang for over six weeks now, having passed his initiation by breaking the legs of a guy who hadn't paid back all the money he'd borrowed. Paulie still thought it was odd that John 'Glasses' Brown insisted that Anthony Dracon was in charge of the gang, when Dracon had been in the stir for over a year and Glasses was the one to give all the orders. But hey, so long as he was accepted by the organization and getting in on the action, and they kept making money hand over fist with the drugs and weapons sales, Glasses could say that Jimmy Hoffa was the boss for all Paulie cared.

Paulie smoothed the sleeve of his new leather jacket, bought just yesterday, reflecting that crime really did pay if you were with the right people. Then he got back to work, mentally adding that while it paid, crime was sure tedious sometimes. They'd gotten a big coke shipment in that morning, fifty pounds smuggled into the city, and now they were breaking it down into 'units for sale', as Paulie's buddy Reuben had put it. Carefully measuring out doses of cocaine on the gram scales and bagging them in itty-bitty bags; it was all Paulie, Reuben and Nate had been doing for the last four hours. Boooorrrring…

Reuben had turned the TV on for entertainment, but this close to Christmas most of the channels were showing nothing but stale old Christmas specials, or new Christmas specials that were just as saccharine-sweet and boring as the old stuff. And they still had nearly twenty pounds of cocaine to process, and their lieutenant Harry said they had to have it all done by tomorrow... Paulie hoped that Harry would come back from his meeting soon and give them a break, or that another member would walk through the door with a movie to watch on the VCR. He just wanted _something_ to happen soon, to break up the monotony; he was bored right out of his skull.

-_**crash**_-

"What the hell?!" Paulie whipped around in his chair at the sound of breaking glass. The window in the living room had just been broken inwards—and something was being tossed inside! Landing on the carpet; it was small and round and—

"Grenade!" Reuben shrieked as he jumped up and started running, while Nate dove under the table.

_**Shit!**_ Paulie jumped up and started running too—

And there was a massive _**BANG!**_ that felt like someone had shoved Paulie's ears in clear through his skull, and the world went blinding white. He felt himself falling over, his ears ringing…

And then he woke up. His head _hurt_, like he'd been clubbed a few times, but he was alive! He'd survived a freaking _**grenade**_ going off! Even while he tried to withstand the crushing headache long enough to open his eyes, he mumbled in awe, "I'm alive!"

"So you are," someone said, and finally Paulie got his eyes open… to see a _monster_ staring him in the face. A big purple monster with ears like a bat, that added, "For now, anyway." And then the monster grinned at him, showing long sharp fangs.

Someone was screaming. It took Paulie a second to realize it was himself.

The grinning purple monster was joined by two others that came into view, a big blue one and a green one with black hair and a beak, and some part of Paulie's brain finally started working enough for him to realize that they were _gargoyles_. And that he wasn't inside the hangout anymore; instead he was on a rooftop. Alone on a rooftop with three gargoyles, and the big fat blue one snarled at him, "And if you want to _**stay**_ alive, instead of becoming our dinner, you'll tell us everything we want to know…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Fox's agony from her magic blast imploding on her had faded over the hours, leaving only a low-level headache. Their captor hadn't spoken to them at all for several hours, not even to ask what had happened earlier. Which Fox had found significant; even if the green magical energy bolt hadn't appeared on the security cameras, they must have recorded how Fox had gone from sitting in front of the featureless door to being flung by an unseen force clear across the room.

"Either he already knows our secret… or he's not keeping an eye on us at all now," Fox had whispered into Anne's ear after three hours had passed without a word from their unseen captor. "If we're lucky, it's the latter."

"You mean, if we're _not_ lucky," Anne had whispered back, her expression grim. "Alexander's almost out of formula."

So they'd taken to periodically shouting at the ceiling, trying to get their captor's attention. And after a few hours and several shouting episodes, they finally got a response; the electronically distorted voice said testily, "What is it now?"

"We need baby formula for Alexander! And more diapers!" Anne shouted upwards.

Fox chimed in, "You want Alexander to stay healthy and well-fed until the ransom is paid, don't you?"

"I'll see about getting more for you later," the voice said after a brief pause. "Tomorrow, perhaps. Now be good little hostages and stay quiet."

"Tomorrow?! My son is hungry _now_!" Fox shouted angrily.

"And he's getting a really bad case of diaper rash!" Anne added, while Alexander wailed in agreement.

Fox switched to a wheedling tone as she said, "Come on, how hard can it be to just walk into a grocery store somewhere and buy some baby formula and diapers? People do it all the time!"

"For your continuing to bother me, the shopping trip has now been pushed back to the day _**after**_ tomorrow," the voice retorted. "And if you keep it up, no new supplies will be brought to you at all." And the intercom audibly clicked off, leaving the two ladies looking at each other in dismay.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Thailog turned irritably away from the microphone after switching it off. He greatly disliked it when any flaw in his plans was pointed out to him, whether the person talking realized it or not.

He'd put a great deal of thought and effort into the construction of the two steel cells for containing his prisoners; making them escape-proof by both conventional and magical means, and rigging Owen Burnett's cell for electrical torture and more. But he hadn't put a great deal of thought into furnishing them, or seeing to his prisoners' comfort. And he hadn't put any thought at all into taking care of an infant's special needs, beyond leaving the diaper bag in with them. In retrospect, it was easy to see why he'd neglected that aspect of the operation; he had no intention of letting the brat live to see his father again, so why would he care about its well-being while captive? But it was still an oversight, one that he'd have to amend.

If Fox deduced from his neglect that he had not planned on Alexander surviving the kidnapping, then it would do no good to let her go and then hold onto the brat while asking for another hundred million from Xanatos. She'd know that even the nanny's best efforts wouldn't be able to keep the baby alive for the additional ransom, and tell her husband too. Thailog might have to go back to his original plan, of simply killing the lot of them as soon as the first hundred million was paid. Still a viable plan, but it would be a pity to miss out on the opportunity to prolong Xanatos' agony, not to mention the added millions. And it would give him a few extra nights to break Puck to his will; the Fey in human guise had proven remarkably resistant to torture so far, and he might end up needing even more time than the week he'd originally planned on.

Well, perhaps a shopping trip was in order. He could hardly just walk into a grocery store and buy the baby supplies as Fox had suggested, but not every grocery store in Manhattan was open 24 hours a day. He'd wait until three a.m., then go out to find a store that was closed, break in and get what the brat needed. Though he would wait until tomorrow night before gassing the cell's occupants unconscious, so he could open their door and set the supplies inside. Yes, he'd make them wait and worry at least one more day before showing them even the slightest mercy; that would be a lesson not to bother their captor when he was busy.

Busy with the most important part of this operation, he thought as he switched the monitor over to Owen Burnett's cell once more. Shaking his head as he saw the man lying down with his eyes closed, as if he'd collapsed unconscious the moment Thailog had stopped to pay attention to the ladies. "Tsk, tsk; sleeping on the job, Burnett?" he said as he administered another shock, watching with satisfaction as the man's eyes flew wide open again. "That won't do at all…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Martin watched with satisfaction as the man he'd just punched rolled his eyes back in his head, then toppled over like a tree that had been cut down. He could have knocked the man across the room, but sometimes it was fun to play a little, hitting with just enough force to knock them unconscious and see how long it took for them to fall over. Having just taken out her own thug, Cecelia looked over at him and the falling gangster just in time to call out "_Timberrrrr_!"

"Huh? Who is Timberrr?" Burbank asked, looking up from the criminal he'd knocked out.

"It's an old joke, Burbank; I'll explain it to you later," Cecelia said. "C'mon, let's get moving!"

And the four gargoyles—three gargoyles and a mutate, Martin corrected himself; Claw might look like a gargoyle but sure didn't smell like one—rapidly went over every square foot of the gang hideout; opening every door, searching every nook and cranny, even ripping the rugs aside to see if trapdoors had been hidden beneath them. They found enough guns to arm a small militia, all of which were wrecked in short order by bending the barrels or crushing the chambers or simply pulling them apart. But there was no sign or smell of the kidnapped humans anywhere.

So they picked one of the unconscious criminals and took him outside and up onto the roof, and waited for him to wake up, which didn't take long. Soon enough the thug was glaring at them—which bothered Martin more than he wanted to admit; he wasn't used to strange humans showing anything but fear at first sight of a gargoyle—and cursing them in a long string of profanity, but not telling them what they wanted to know.

Martin figured it was time to take the gangster for a glide, and play drop-and-catch with him until he softened up. But then Claw growled, and signed something to Burbank. Burbank nodded to Claw and snarled at the criminal, "If you don't tell us where our friends are, he's going to hurt you bad!"

"Go fuck yourselves," the gangster sneered. "I still don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but even if I did, I ain't afraid of nothing!" But his eyes were nervous as Claw extended one clawed finger towards his face—and then he gave a yelp of pain as a spark of electricity arced from the fingertip to the gangster's nose.

After sparking him, Claw growled at the gangster. Burbank didn't have to interpret that one: _Talk, or else_!

But after an all-over shudder, the crook got his nerve back and just sneered again. "Ooooh, the big kitty can make sparks! Comes from all that nice soft fur, doesn't it? You probably like to be petted, don't you, pussycat?"

At the crook's sneering words, Claw jerked as if he'd been stung. Martin wondered if one of those jibes had hit a little too close to home. Then the mutate seemed to swell even larger, as all his fur stood on end with a static charge that had him almost glowing and the air around him crackling. He picked up a loose piece of roofing tile, tossed it into the air, then aimed and fired; a bolt of lightning in miniature, that hit the tile and exploded it into burning chunks.

After the debris finished falling, Claw turned back to the gangster, with his fangs bared. And he reached down with one glowing, crackling hand towards the man's crotch…

"_I'll talk, I'll talk__**!**__ For Chrissake, __**please**__, I'll talk__**!**_"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"When I was a kid, I used to wish for wings like an angel," Anne said with forlorn irony as she poured some bottled water into a baby bottle for Alexander, while Bethany disconsolately chewed on a strip of jerky. "But right now, if I had them I'd trade 'em in a heartbeat for claws like a gargoyle, to claw our way out of here…"

"Amen to that," Fox muttered, then paused.

She'd never had wings, but she'd had claws once…

When she'd been wearing the Eye of Odin, as David's engagement gift. The Eye was supposed to bring to the fore, and amplify to the nth degree, the wearer's 'true self'. And it had transformed Fox into a huge Werefox, a bestial creature as strong as the average gargoyle and with claws nearly as deadly.

She barely remembered most of her time as the Werefox; her normal thoughts had been submerged under the bestial need to survive and feed… especially feed, as her massively accelerated metabolism demanded food almost constantly. Particularly meat; she had a brief flash of memory, of encountering David inside a meat packing plant. Encountering him, and nearly killing and eating him, she reminded herself with a shudder.

The Werefox was dangerous… But if the legend Owen had related was right, as much as she hated to admit it, the Werefox was a part of herself, magically enhanced. Enhanced enough that she'd reportedly ripped apart a pair of elevator doors while fleeing the castle; steel-reinforced elevator doors, too.

And if that part of herself had been enhanced once by magic, perhaps it could be enhanced again. Odin was actually a Fey, and Fey magic was Fey magic, right? Some of them just specialized, like humans often specialized in their own talents and skills, but theoretically they were all capable of doing the same things. At least, she assumed that was how Fey magic worked… dammit, _**why**_ hadn't she sat in on those magic lessons?!

Maybe there was a way to use the magic inside her, to transform into the Were-Fox again. She just had to figure out how… but more importantly, how to do it _without_ turning completely bestial, and turning on Anne and the children as the nearest available prey. Could she do that? Was it worth the risk of finding out?

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"_**YAAAAAAAAAHHHH--"**_

Joey's scream abruptly stopped when he lost all the remaining air in his lungs, as a gargoyle that looked like a big winged cat swooped in and caught him around the torso with a hard _whumph_!

The impact was hard enough to crack a rib or two, but just then Joey didn't care about that. The cat-gargoyle carried him back upwards into the sky, while Joey screamed at the red beaked gargoyle circling up high, "_**You dropped me**_! You motherfuckers _nearly __**killed **__me_!"

The beaked gargoyle said something to the other gargoyle up high, a big orange bastard with tusks like a boar, then shouted downwards with a twisted grin, "Why so surprised, Joey? Didn't I tell you I'd drop you if you didn't talk?"

"Yeah, but you gargoyles don't kill anyone! You've been fucking with our business for _two years now_, and you've never killed anyone!"

"Always a first time, eh?" said the cat-gargoyle carrying him, She had an odd accent, but what bothered Joey more were the really sharp fangs showing in her smile. Joey had never liked even regular cats, let alone gargoyle-cats…

But he hadn't survived so long in Dracon's gang, survived more shootouts and territory wars between rival gangs than he could count, by being an easy nut to crack. Joey had been cool as cucumber at the first clue that some bad shit was going down, when a window had been broken and something round like a grenade had been tossed into the hangout. He hadn't panicked, just run for the nearest cover like any smart guy would. But the damn thing had exploded before he could get through the door to the bathroom, blinding and deafening him, and somebody had knocked him out before he could get his sight and hearing back.

Even so, when he'd woken up to find himself being carried into the sky by gargoyles, he hadn't lost his cool. He'd told the gargoyles demanding information to go fuck themselves, and matched them insult for insult and threat for threat—until they'd actually dropped him. But he'd been caught again, which meant they hadn't been intending to kill him, so now he sneered back at the gargoyle carrying him, "Ain't gonna be no first time tonight, bitch. You gargoyles are too much like cops; you got _rules_ to follow."

"You're right, there are rules…" and then the gargoyle bitch let go of him! He screamed again as he grabbed desperately for her but missed, but then she caught him again by one wrist; caught him and swung him around like a toy on a string, nearly yanking his arm out of its socket. Through the blaze of agony from his shoulder, he heard her say, "And rules are made to be broken!"

"Nice one, hon," the beaked gargoyle said as Joey was taken, still dangling by his wrist, up higher to his level. "See, Joey, before tonight we really were playing by rules, like the police. But now, some of our friends are missing… and now we play _hardball_. Tonight, the only rule is that _**we get our people back**_, now matter what it takes! Understand?! …Say, your arm's looking kind-of odd there, Joey. Dislocated it, didn't you? Hurts pretty bad, doesn't it? Tell you what, we _**won't **_do the same to your other arm… if you tell us everything you know about the kidnapping. But if you still say you know nothing, then we're just going to have to hurt you even more… before we drop you again. Hollywood, you want to play catch this time?"

The big orange tusker looked worried as he said, "Um… I never played catch using people before."

"It's just like playing catch with tomatoes… except if you drop them, they make a much bigger splat."

Joey was glad no other gang member was there to see him sobbing; the agony from his dislocated shoulder on top of the fear of ending up 'street pizza' were just too much to handle. "No, _please_! _**Please!**_ Fuck it, _I'll talk_! _**I'll talk!**_ Just _**please**_ put me down without dropping me…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Halfway across town, patrol officers Minetti and Poulsbo were responding to an anonymous tip that had been phoned in just minutes ago: a woman was being held hostage in room 615 of Hotel Danvers. The anonymous caller had said they'd glimpsed a woman with her hands tied behind her back and a hood on her head, being led out of the bathroom by one man while two more were in another room of the hotel suite. But the caller had hung up before the dispatcher could ask how they had seen all that, or get any more information out of her.

Minetti and Poulsbo had been only a few blocks away from the hotel when the call had come in. They'd pulled up outside the hotel and gotten out, reflexively glancing upwards at the sixth floor, even though they knew they wouldn't be able to see anything from the street. Then Poulsbo stopped on the sidewalk and said, "Do you see that?"

Minetti had been about to head inside the hotel, but he stopped and looked up again. "See what?"

"I thought I saw… saw something moving, up in the sky over the hotel," Poulsbo said, still peering upwards.

"A gargoyle?"

"Not unless they're made of metal. Whatever it was seemed to gleam for a second…" Poulsbo strained his eyes peering as hard as he could, but he couldn't see the moving thing anymore. Whatever light had been reflecting off it, wasn't doing so anymore. Assuming his eyes weren't playing tricks on him and there really had been something there.

"Maybe you saw a plane from LaGuardia, passing higher overhead than you thought it was. Whatever; c'mon, let's check this out," as Minetti headed inside, and Poulsbo followed him.

They flashed their badges to the hotel manager, and after checking his guest register he willingly escorted them up to room 615, hanging back as they approached the door. Since they still didn't know for sure if the call had been a real tip or just a crank caller having fun with cops, they started out by being semi-polite and knocking. Minetti pounded on the door and said loudly, "This is the police! We have the building surrounded; come out with your hands up!"

From behind the door, the officers heard muffled cursing and running feet, and something heavy toppling to the floor. Sounds they understood instantly; the sounds of people who were very unhappy that the cops were outside their door. Not happy at all, and fixing to do something about it.

That was the signal to stop being nice. Minetti lifted up one of his size 10's and kicked hard, and the lock gave way as the door crashed inwards. Poulsbo was right next to his partner, his gun aimed and ready to fire. Which is why he was able to shoot the man standing across the room with his weapon aimed right at the door, before the perp could squeeze off a shot.

One down, and as they stampeded inside the room with their weapons ready, they didn't see anyone else in the suite's living room or the nearby kitchenette. But they'd definitely heard multiple voices, the tip had said three men with a hostage, and the bedroom door was open...

"_**Police! Freeze!**_" as they barged in, ready to fire. And of the three people in the room, one man abruptly dropped his weapon and raised his hands over his head. But the second man had reached the bed, and dragged someone off it; a woman in a pantsuit with a hood over her head, and her hands tied behind her back. The hostage! And the bastard was holding her in front of him as he shouted, "No, _**you**_ _freeze_! You make a move and _I'll kill her right now_!" as he jammed his handgun against the hooded head.

The officers froze, inwardly cursing. Why, oh _**Why**_ hadn't Dispatch sent the SWAT team instead of just a patrol unit?! They'd only had minimal training for hostage situations! These were what every cop feared most; too damn many hostage situations ended with the hostage being killed! What should they do now?

"_**Put your goddamn guns down right now**_**!!**" the kidnapper holding the hostage screamed, jamming his gun even harder against the woman's head. And the other kidnapper in the room slowly smiled as he bent down and picked up his gun again.

Muffled sounds emerged from beneath the hood; the woman was alive, and pleading… probably begging for the officers to save her. Save her from kidnappers who, right that moment, held all the cards.

With quick glances at each other, Minetti and Poulsbo both began to back away, while _very_ slowly lowering their weapons, a few degrees at a time. "No need for anyone to die today, okay? No need to die either now _or later_, keeping in mind that New York State has a death penalty," Minetti added as the other kidnapper began to train his gun on them.

"Look, we're lowering our weapons, see?" Poulsbo said soothingly as they slowly stepped back another pace and lowered their weapons another few degrees. "So, no need for anyone to do anything rash--"

But Poulsbo's uttered "rash" coincided with a _crash_, a crash of glass breaking as the window behind the kidnappers shattered.

Shattered inwards, as a metallic tentacle whipped into the room, instantly snaked itself around the wrist of the hand holding the gun against the woman's head, and yanked hard back and upwards—

Just as the gun went off.

And that kidnapper died with a very surprised look on his face.

Poulsbo couldn't blame him for being surprised. Nobody ever expected to blow their own neck apart.

Blood spattered the room as the kidnapper toppled and fell sideways to the floor, taking the hostage with him. The head grotesquely flopped onto the carpet behind the shoulders, still attached by a flap of skin at the back of the neck. The neck-stump spurted blood in pulses for a few more seconds, before slowing to a drip onto the carpet as the heart finally stopped.

The other kidnapper just stood frozen for a moment, gaping at what remained of his partner. Then he remember that there were two cops in the room with him, and turned back to face them as he lifted his gun again--

But Minetti fired first. A big bloody spot appeared on the kidnapper's chest, as he screamed and fell backwards.

By the time Poulsbo got over his sheer astonishment at what had happened and started to move again, Minetti had already holstered his gun and started heading towards the downed hostage. Then froze, backed up and started moving for his gun again, as the thing Poulsbo had glimpsed outside the window slowly pushed aside the shards remaining in the pane, and came inside…

A flying golden robot, draped all over with red and green tinsel garlands and sporting a sign saying "Merry Christmas!"

Poulsbo blinked furiously, four times in a row, then opened his eyes wide again. Yep, it was still there.

Minetti trained his gun on the robot, but all it did was settle to the ground next to the downed hostage and her very dead kidnapper. Then the metal tentacles came out again and Minetti tensed, but Poulsbo said hurriedly, "Don't fire! I think… I think it's friendly."

"What the fuck _**is**_ that thing?" Minetti said in awe as the robot used its tentacles to gently separate the hostage from the kidnapper's cooling grip, then tug the hood off of her head. A blonde woman with a tear-stained face stared wide-eyed up at the robot, then started trying to scream past the gag still in her mouth.

"Uh, here, let me do the rest, okay?" Poulsbo said, having already holstered his weapon, as he knelt carefully down next to the woman and robot. "Uh, we appreciate the help, but you're freaking her out now."

He had no idea if the robot was listening or if it was even capable of receiving audio, but it pulled its tentacles back in. Keeping an eye on it just in case, Poulsbo hurriedly rolled the woman over enough to untie the gag, while saying, "It's all right, miss, you're safe now… what's your name, miss?"

"C-Caroline Dickens," the woman said after she spat the gag out of her mouth, still staring at the robot.

"Well, Caroline, your kidnappers aren't going to trouble you any more… can you tell us why you were being held hostage?" as Poulsbo began untying her hands as well.

"W-we won the lottery last year, and they said they wanted a million dollars from my husband, or…" the woman's voice trailed off and everyone stared at the robot rose up into the air again, then slowly backed out the window. Then she asked what Minetti had asked earlier: "W-what _**is**_ that thing?"

Poulsbo shrugged as he took a wild guess. "Spirit of Christmas Future?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Back at Cyberbiotics, Phil Mandelay the cybot operator turned apologetically to the man parked beside his station. "It's not your daughter, sir; I'm sorry."

A heavy sigh, as the age-spotted hands that had been tensely holding the armrests of the computerized wheelchair slowly relaxed their clawlike grip. His air of disappointment was almost palpable, but Halcyon Renard mused aloud, "Well, some good was still done. That woman no doubt appreciates being free of her own kidnappers. Even if she's not who we're searching for, no action that saves lives can be considered wasted."

The other operators who had been clustered around the station watching the monitor nodded and voiced their agreement, and a couple of them gave Mandelay congratulatory slaps on the back. But before they got too enthusiastic in their cheering, their supervisor Swanson said loudly, "All right, everyone back to work; we've got a lot more city to search!"

All the operators reluctantly nodded agreement and went back to their own stations, as Swanson told Mandelay, "Run a quick diagnostic on #314; make sure it's still fully functional. If it got damaged by a bullet ricochet, better to know now than later."

"Running the diagnostic now, sir," Mandelay replied as his fingers danced across his keyboard.

Swanson glanced questioningly at Renard, while gesturing with his thumb at Mandelay. When Renard nodded, Swanson grinned and said to Mandelay, "And for the record: congratulations, Cybot Operator III. That was fast work, and some pretty fine control of your unit."

"Actually, I'm a Level II, sir," Mandelay said absently. Then he looked up from the keyboard with his eyes wide. "Or maybe I should say I _was_ a Level II…?"

Swanson grinned wider. "Like I said, congratulations. And Merry Christmas. Now get back to work!"

"_Yes, sir_!"

But Renard had already turned away, to send his wheelchair cruising back to the manager's station at the back of the room. Preston Vogel fell into step alongside the chair as he said quietly, "The search has only begun, sir; we've covered less than ten percent of Manhattan so far."

"And we'll keep it up until we've covered 100% of the island," Renard said brusquely, still rolling. "And if no one has found my daughter and grandson by then, we'll start on Staten Island and Brooklyn!"

"Of course, sir. But may I point out that there is no need for you to stay awake all that time?"

"You're not my nurse, Vogel," Renard growled back, giving his aide a fierce glare.

"Indeed not, sir. Your nurse is currently stationed outside the door. But she saw fit to inform me that you were up most of last night, unable to sleep due to your ailment. And that before we'd learned of the kidnapping, you had agreed to retire to your quarters early tonight and let her increase your medicinal dosage enough to ensure a good night's rest."

Renard _harrumphed _and started to respond, but that harrumph turned into a coughing fit. When the fit finally passed, he took with a trembling hand the handkerchief Vogel was holding out to him, wiped the flecks of darkly discolored spittle from his lips, then growled, "You'll wake me up the moment anything develops!"

"Of course, sir."

"_The very moment_, Vogel!"

"Absolutely, sir."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

*_crackle_* "Psst, Elisa?"

Elisa hissed "Wait" at her jacket collar, as she stood up from her chair and hurried into the women's bathroom of the precinct. Once she was sure she was alone in there, she said into the microphone embedded in her jacket collar, "Go ahead, Brooklyn; what news do you have?"

"Not good news, sorry, but it's something your fellow police officers need to know about. We finally shook down a Dracon gang member who knew something about a kidnapping, but it's not any of our people. Instead, it's some lottery-winner's wife who's been kidnapped; Dracon's people didn't do the kidnapping, but they supplied the weapons and gadgetry for the scum who did, in return for a cut of the take. The kidnapped woman's name is Caroline Dickens, and Joey was pretty sure that she's being held in a room in the Hotel Danvers. We don't have time to go there and rescue her right now, not with so many Dracon hangouts left to cover, so the police need to do it instead."

Elisa smiled wryly as she replied, "You're about fifteen minutes too late, Brook. Word's going through the precinct right now about how two officers just rescued Caroline Dickens... with some help from a robot they're calling the Spirit of Christmas Future. Matt and I think it's one of Renard's cybots and that Renard's the one who phoned in the anonymous tip, but we haven't said anything to the captain yet."

"Oh. Well, that's good news for somebody, anyway. Wish we had good news for us tonight, but we've hit twelve of Dracon's bases of operations so far with still no sign of our people, and no one who's talked has known anything about them. Are you _sure _Brod's gang is out of business?"

Elisa nodded, though Brooklyn couldn't see it. "Brod and all his lieutenants are behind bars, awaiting trial and conviction before being deported back to Czechoslovakia, and Brod wasn't in the country long enough to build up a lasting power base with local gang members. Brod's gang really did die when the head was chopped off, but the same can't be said for Dracon's gang. Keep looking, Brooklyn… and if you happen to see any drug stashes or weapons caches while you're raiding their bases…"

Brooklyn responded, "We've been wrecking all the guns we see while searching, just like we agreed on when we planned this whole operation. Hollywood dropped two big bagfuls of heroin in the river from this raid, and I think Etienne set fire to a big coke stash on their first raid, from what Broadway said about Etienne getting creative with gasoline. But finding our people has to come first, even over putting an end to Dracon's gang for good!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_To be continued in: __**Desperate Measures**_


	7. Desperate Measures

**10.7: Desperate Measures**

Three hours had passed since Fox had come up with one last, desperate idea for escape; an idea that she was honestly scared to try. Partly because it was doubtful that idea would work; the cold iron in the steel cell surrounding her might negate her attempt and just leave her with a crippling headache again. But mostly because if her idea worked, if she succeeded in transforming, she would be putting her infant son and everyone else in the cell at terrible risk.

But now Alexander was hungry again, and plain water wasn't satisfying him anymore. And their kidnapper had maliciously informed them that he wouldn't bring in any baby formula or supplies for at least two more nights. So Anne took the only food they had available, the beef jerky, and attempted to soften a strip with water and saliva. After three minutes of determined chewing, she'd softened some jerky into a salty meat paste that the baby could eat.

But he gagged and spit and finally heaved it back up, as too much for his little six-month-old digestive system to handle, and Anne's eyes met hers with bleak despair… and Fox knew it was time to take the risk.

"Anne," she whispered, "Take the kids and yourself to the far corner. Stay there till I tell you it's safe, and don't make a sound. Not a single sound out of any of you, understand? Don't do anything to draw my attention to you."

"Ma'am, what are you going to do now?" Anne whispered back, looking worried and wary. Considering that Fox's ideas so far had resulted in her suffering a broken foot and a near-concussion, Anne had reason to be worried… but this time it was the wrong reason.

"We can't use magic directly against iron. But indirectly is another matter…" as Fox turned to face the door again.

Anne took the children over to the far corner, while Fox settled onto hands and knees directly in front of the door, setting her fingertips against the cold floor while awkwardly holding her broken and splinted foot out behind her, and closed her eyes.

And remembered… remembered how her body had changed, with pain ripping along every nerve and sinew, but the pain had always been accompanied by a crazy wild delight, almost like a sadistic form of orgasm… Remembered how her body had rippled with russet fur and incredible strength and speed, how every sense had been sharpened, how it felt to run on all fours and follow the scent of meat…

And told herself and the magic lying deep within her, _I want to feel that again. Make me feel that again_.

At first, nothing happened.

And then she began to tingle all over

and the tingle _**hurt**_

but it felt so _**good**_

and she felt her clothes ripping

but she didn't care about that, only about the lovely russet fur sprouting on her hands

her paws

and she was HERSELF again!

But caged.

She did not like being caged.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Anne watched in horror and hugged the children to her as, in front of her eyes, Fox suddenly grew larger and sprouted fur all over her body. Clothes were torn to shreds and the splint made out of water bottles burst apart as she transformed into—into a _werewolf_! A werewolf with fur even redder than her hair, as red as a fox's fur… a were-fox? But foxes were small, and she was so _huge_…

Whatever Fox had become, now she growled, and stalked forward to the steel door to their prison. Rearing up on her hind legs, she sank the claws of her front paws into the steel as easily as a gargoyle could. The tortured steel screamed as she ripped the door right out of the frame!

The Were-Fox cast the door aside as she howled in triumph, either not noticing or not caring that the flung door had nearly hit Anne and the children, missing them by less than a foot. Then she went back to all fours and loped out of their prison, without a backward glance.

Anne told herself to forget about the massive steel door that had fallen to the floor only inches away from Bethany's little head, with an ear-splitting clang that was still reverberating; about how close they had just come to dying by accident. That wasn't what mattered right now! "Hang on, kids," she said as she stood up with Bethany and Alex in her arms. "This is our only chance!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

While observing Owen, Thailog's first clue that something had happened to his other prisoners was when the alarm on the women and children's cell went off. The door to their cell had been breached—but not the door to the warehouse itself, which meant that someone had come in to rescue them by some other entrance, likely having made their own.

Thailog grinned. He'd almost been hoping that Goliath's gargoyles, so fond of breaking in through windows and carving their own entrances in walls, would attempt a rescue. He flipped a switch to flood the women's cell with the anesthetic gas that Sevarius had designed; it would work on humans, but it worked most effectively on gargoyles. Even after the gas dissipated and they woke up, they'd be too weak to do more than lie there waiting for him to collect them up.

Then he frowned, because the green light to indicate the gas inside the cell had been deployed, did not come on. He'd tested that circuit with harmless helium gas only two weeks ago; why wasn't it working?

The TV monitor had been set to viewing inside Owen Burnett's cell, where Owen still sat motionless except for occasional twitches. He switched it over to the women's cell—

Just as the alarm for one of the warehouse doors went off, the door on the far side of the warehouse from his view out the window; that door had just been breached.

Breaking out from the inside? He realized that just as the camera focused on the contents of the cell—now empty except for the door to the cell, which had been ripped clear off its hinges and flung across the room. To impact by sheer luck into the port that the anesthetic gas would have issued from, jamming it shut.

He switched to the monitor for the warehouse exterior, to see… _something_ dashing out of the camera's view. Something large and fast, and moving on four legs; it moved out of the frame too fast for him to discern more but it was most likely Bronx, that wingless gargoyle-dog he'd encountered in Paris. And behind Bronx came the nanny, running out of the warehouse through the remains of the doorway, while carrying the two children.

No sign of Fox Xanatos in the frame, but the woman was an Olympic-level athlete and could have run with Bronx past the range of the camera before he'd switched to that view. Of more importance at the moment was that Xanatos's brat was escaping in the nanny's arms! And he was not about to let that happen. Growling and grabbing his gun, he headed for the window.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Panting, Anne ran after the shape-changed figure of Fox Xanatos, the four-legged creature vanishing swiftly into the night. When Fox had transformed, the process must have healed her broken foot, because the creature she had become was running without a trace of a limp.

It had been years since Anne had run for more than short distances, usually after one of the children she'd been minding at day care centers, and she'd never had to run while carrying a child in each arm. But fear and sheer adrenaline lent her speed and endurance, as she ran out of the warehouse and into the night with the children fearfully clutching at her.

Whoever their captor was, he hadn't been outside the steel cell; the warehouse had been empty as the Were-Fox had run through it, snarling. Ann had seen another steel-covered room on the far side of the warehouse, and wondered if Owen Burnett was inside, but the Were-Fox had paid it no attention; instead, it—_she_—had gone straight for the warehouse door, reared back and torn it open as easily as she had their cell door. For a split-second Anne had wondered about going over to the other steel cell, to see if she could easily open the door from the outside… but even if Owen were inside, he'd probably tell her what she already knew: getting the children to safety was more important.

Fox had already vanished out of sight by the time Anne paused at a street corner next to the warehouse, panting harshly as she looked around, trying to get her bearings. Where in New York were they, and which way lay safety? She smelled sea air; they were near the docks. And that street sign on the corner… by the numbering of the streets, they were on the East side of the southern end of the island, probably not far from Battery Park.

She hadn't been this far south in Manhattan in years; not since her trip to see the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island, picnicking with Philip in Battery Park on the way back. This was unfamiliar territory to her; she had no idea where the nearest police station was. But any well-lit public place should provide safety; a McD's restaurant, even! Their kidnapper had gone to such lengths to conceal his identity from his hostages, he surely wouldn't dare show himself in public! "Hang on, kids," as she chose her course and headed inland, for Manhattan's main thoroughfares; the most likely place to find an all-night eatery.

But after going only fifty feet more, she heard a low growling coming up behind her. Oh God, was it the Were-Fox? Mrs. Xanatos had been so worried about her changed form noticing the children; what if it was because the were-creature would see them only as _prey_?! Anne gulped and ran faster…

But it wasn't fast enough. Some thing huge and dark loped past her, then spun around to face her and the children. And in the dim light of a nearby street lamp, she saw—

A gargoyle! And the silhouette was so big, it could only be Goliath! "Oh, thank God," she gasped. "Goliath, we were kidnapped!"

"I know," Goliath said, grinning. Grinning with fangs as white as his hair, glistening in the dim light. As he pulled a gun and trained it on her.

"Gol—oh,_ shit_," Anne whispered, as realization struck her. She'd heard about this gargoyle, after the clones had come to live in the Labyrinth; the evil gargoyle who had created them in order to fight and capture the original clan… "_Thailog_."

Thailog chuckled, a deep malicious sound that sent slivers of ice through her spine. "Very astute. Now turn around like a good girl, and go back to your cell. I won't hesitate to--"

But Anne didn't hesitate either; before he could finish his sentence, she turned and ran. Thailog was a cold-blooded _psychopath_; Talon and the clan had stressed that every time they'd talked about him. In their first encounter, he'd left Goliath, Elisa, Mr. Xanatos and the scientist Sevarius in a deathtrap that they'd barely escaped. Last spring in Paris, he'd made arrangements for Demona and Macbeth to kill each other, even while pretending to love Demona with all his black heart. Last August he would have wiped out the entire clan and Talon too, if Demona hadn't turned against him at the last second in order to save her daughter. And now that Anne knew who their captor was, there was no chance he was going to let her and Bethany live to tell anyone else of that knowledge. She ran, and she screamed "MRS. XANATOS! FOX, HELP! **FOX!** **HELLLLP!!!**" Better a were-creature who _**might**_ kill her and the children, than someone who definitely would!

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

She was running free! The night was alive with scents and sounds, and she excitedly sniffed and listened as she loped along.

Then her ears twitched as, from behind her, she faintly heard a human female screaming in fear. And some part of her came up with a word for that human: _Anne_.

And then she remembered: Anne had _**her cub**_!

She spun about and raced back, snarling.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Thailog sighed in resignation, then took careful aim at the fleeing figure. His first shot missed its target, but the second hit dead-on, right where he'd aimed; in the meat of the nanny's left calf.

Pity that his 'little half-brother' wasn't just another year or two older, he thought as the nanny shrieked in pain and crumpled. (Even as she fell, she frantically rolled to land on her back instead of on the children. He supposed he should find that touching, but he just found it convenient.) If the brat was able to talk and feed itself, then he'd be free to shoot the nanny and her own brat dead, and still be assured of getting paid for the Xanatos brat's safe return. Instead, he'd have to keep at least one of the women alive in order to for her to keep the brat alive and give the status reports to Xanatos, until he had the money in hand. So until he had Fox secured in the cell again, the rule was flesh wounds only.

And now that the nanny was down, it was time to find Fox. And preferably convince the woman to go quietly back into her cell without ever seeing her captor, though he doubted that was possible. Yes, he really should have sought out and stolen a tranquilizer rifle before beginning this operation; something to keep in mind if he ever felt the need to kidnap someone for ransom again. (He would have done it this time, but he'd had enough trouble stealing or anonymously buying all his other supplies, and regular handguns were so much more plentiful and easy to obtain.)

He hadn't seen Xanatos's woman running down the street while he'd been descending to street level; was she still inside the warehouse, trying to free Owen Burnett from his cell? Any other kidnapper would assume she'd been faking the earlier claim of a broken foot and had run fast enough to get out of sight, and start canvassing the area… but no other kidnapper would attempt to kidnap a Fey in disguise. And an Owen Burnett freed from that cell, free to turn into Puck, and free to express his opinion of the treatment he'd been given for the last twenty-eight hours… Making sure Owen Burnett was still locked up was of high priority.

If Fox was indeed still inside the warehouse, trying to free Puck, then he'd knock her out and personally ensure both her hands were broken; so long as the nanny had two working hands, she could tend to the children just fine. And if Fox wasn't still in the warehouse, he'd take the truck and go track her down, bring her back to the warehouse and _then_ break both her hands. With bodily harm in mind, Thailog stalked back towards the warehouse—which was also towards the nanny, but she had never been a threat to him even when hale and hearty. He could leave her behind without any worries while he tended to his more important prisoners.

That snarling growl he suddenly heard coming from behind him, on the other hand…

He'd been expecting to see Bronx much earlier, and mildly surprised to find that the gargoyle-dog hadn't been sticking close to the women he'd been rescuing. Stupid beast probably didn't understand orders beyond "Sit!" "Fetch!" and "Attack!" But now it had decided to come back, probably in hopes of a doggy treat, and recognized him as an enemy of old. _A foe who still thinks you're too noisy; no chance of surprising me this time, mutt_, he thought as he turned around

and was surprised after all.

_A werewolf?! Where did the clan get a werewolf_—was all he had time to think before it jumped for him, wickedly clawed hands out and slavering jaws open for a killing bite.

He wasn't too startled to pull the trigger, but his aim was spoiled; instead of hitting the beast right in that open mouth and putting the bullet through its brain, he only nicked its left ear. But that hit was enough to make the beast flinch even as it flung itself on him. He went crashing backwards with the beast on top of him, snarling with rage.

Thailog hated hand-to-hand combat. Shooting foes from a distance was so much easier. But still, he'd learned the basics; he used the beast's own momentum to throw it up and away from him, long enough to scramble to his feet.

He'd hoped that being tossed like that would have momentarily stunned the beast and convinced it to find easier prey, but he should have known better. He'd seen enough late-night movies to know that werewolves were notoriously hard to beat, let alone kill. Even as he got to his feet, it sprang on him again, this time landing on his back—and sinking its fangs into the spur of his already mangled wing! He screamed in pain, even as he reached back with both arms to grab two fistfuls of fur around its ruffed neck; grab hold and yank hard, up and over.

The werewolf yelped as this time he flung it off him and full-force into the nearest wall. It twisted to hit sideways instead of head-first, but the impact stunned it enough that it slid down the wall to land in a heap at the bottom. But stunned for only a moment before it lurched to its feet, shaking its head, then leaped for him again.

Yes indeed, hard to kill, Thailog observed as he met the werewolf with a haymaker, slamming both fists into the side of its elongated jaw and knocking it away again. Where was a silver dagger when a body needed one? Or silver bullets; he'd have to start carrying a clip of such bullets around…

The punch didn't knock the werewolf out, but did make it stagger back, up against the pole of a nearby street lamp. But only for a moment, before it came snarling at him again.

"Persistent, aren't you?" Thailog growled through gritted teeth as he braced himself to throw a devastating right hook. But the damn beast was either quicker or smarter than he'd thought, because this time it dodged his fist—and then gripped his forearm with its own clawed hand and lunged in to bite down, fangs tearing into his flesh!

He roared with pain, but used his other hand to clamp down hard on the beast's muzzle, completely covering its nostrils. As he'd hoped, the threat of having its oxygen cut off made the beast let go with its jaws, jerking its head up and away—and exposing its throat just long enough for him to aim a fist for its trachea.

It wasn't a very good punch, coming in from a bad angle. But spurred on by sheer adrenaline, he hit its throat with enough force that it should have crushed the windpipe—and would have, on any normal beast. But the damn werewolf only staggered back for a few moments, coughing harshly, before determinedly coming for him again.

But now he was armed and ready for it. Not armed with his gun, which had been lost sometime in that first attack, but armed with the street light pole that he'd just ripped out of the sidewalk. And as the werewolf charged him again, he swung for it with all his might. Even if the pole wasn't silver, the sheer force of impact would do some damage, he thought with satisfaction as the swing connected and the werewolf was batted a full ten yards away.

The werewolf landed in the middle of the street, and lay there in a heap for a few moments before starting to struggle to its feet again. "Oh no you don't!" Thailog snarled as he strode over with the light pole. "Time for an obedience lesson, Rover: Play Dead!" as he brought the pole down full-force right on the beast's skull. It thudded to the pavement again, and he continued with satisfaction, "Or just _be_ dead. I'm fine either way."

Well, well, the late-night movies had gotten something else right. When they were killed, werewolves reverted back into their human form. Before his very eyes, the red fur receded and the form shrunk in on itself, to become…

Fox Xanatos.

Well, damn. There went the ransom money for her.

But he could still get money for the brat, he thought at he dropped the bent and battered pole over the dead were-woman's body, and turned to go back to where the nanny had been shot. And just like a good little hostage, she hadn't crawled more than ten feet away yet…

He took a moment to reassess his status and options. Personal status: He was in pain and bleeding profusely from his arm and wing, but the blood wasn't spurting; the werewolf hadn't gotten to an artery. He had painkillers and a first aid kit back in his headquarters, and could apply bandages to stop the bleeding; stone sleep would do the rest. Traditionally, a werewolf's bite was infectious and created other werewolves… but only from bitten humans; he was probably immune to that threat by his very nature. Though he'd douse both wounds with peroxide before bandaging them, to be on the safe side.

Operational status: No gargoyles had come swooping out of the sky to attack him so far. It appeared that Fox had been the one to break the hostages out in her werewolf form, and no one had discovered their location yet. He'd have to do a hurry-up job on that broken warehouse door, boarding it up before anyone noticed and investigated, but other than that the warehouse was still secure. And he had a spare set of leg irons that could be put on the nanny, with a length of chain that could easily be fastened to a stake pounded into the floor. Once the woman was chained in place, he could leave her and the children in the cell even with its broken door, while he went back to breaking Owen Burnett / the Puck to his will.

Despite the pain radiating from his arm and his further-mangled wing, Thailog gave a savage, fangs-bared smile as he concluded that he'd had a minor setback, but the operation was still quite salvageable.

"Bethany, run! Run away, please! Somebody, anybody, help us! Please!" the nanny sobbed as he came towards them, trying pitifully to crawl away while still holding the Xanatos brat with one arm, and while her own brat clung terrified to her instead of running.

Even in the pain he was in, Thailog couldn't help chuckling at the sight. This was just too easy! So easy, he might as well have a bit of fun at their expense. He leaped forward the last ten feet with his talons outstretched, and the nanny shrieked and tried to cover the children with her own body. Then he backed off, and waited a few seconds for her to raise her head again before he took a playful swipe at her, his talons snagging and ripping out some of her hair. She shrieked aloud and cowered down even further; such a pitiful sight! Straightening up, he laughed again—

And then the world came crashing down on him.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_**WHUDD!**_ Heinrich bent his knees to absorb some of the impact, while the rest of it was absorbed by the black gargoyle he landed feet-first on. He'd dropped straight down from at least fifty feet up, and the force of his impact drove the other gargoyle hard and face-first into the pavement.

Stumbling off the winged back, once he'd regained his balance he turned around and pointed accusingly at the black gargoyle while he snarled in his native tongue, "((_**Fuck you**__, and your whole underground family! _I don't care if Gregor never sees another gargoyle in his life; better that than to live with _**animals **_that go after defenseless women and children!))"

He was still trembling with the outrage and horror he'd felt on first sight of the big black gargoyle terrorizing the woman and her children; playing with them like a cat plays with its prey. _Lieber Gott_, were all the others of his kind like that?! …No, they couldn't be! It must be just this American breed that were such savages.

_Gott sei dank_, that he had decided to glide in this direction to clear his head after emerging from those horrible tunnels in Central Park! If he'd gone north instead of south, or even just come by a few minutes later… if his curiosity hadn't urged him to discreetly check out the sounds of beasts fighting, that he'd heard from two blocks away…

He closed his eyes and counted to ten, willing himself to stop shaking with outrage and adrenaline and for his eyes to stop glowing. Then he turned to the woman and her crying children, who were all staring at him wide-eyed. He switched to English as he crouched down, trying to look small and non-threatening—probably a lost cause, considering who they'd just been terrorized by, but it was worth a try. He said softly, "You are safe now. I will not harm you. Are you hurt? Do you need… ah, _ein Arzt_… a doctor?"

"M-my leg; he shot me," the woman said tearfully. "Are you from the New Orleans clan?" Then, before Heinrich could ask her what she meant by that, she pointed past him with a gasp. "Mrs. Xanatos! Oh god, he killed her!"

Heinrich looked to where she was pointing, and saw the wreckage of a street lamp draped—bent?—over someone else lying in the street. He couldn't tell from where he was crouched if the other person was breathing. But whether she was alive or dead, there was a more immediate matter; the gargoyle he'd crash-landed on was audibly breathing, definitely still alive.

Heinrich knew the most expedient thing to do would be to rip the—the _beast's_ throat out, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do that; not to another of his own kind, however base and perverted it was, and not in front of the children. So instead, he said to the woman, "You and the children must get to safety. I can carry you, if you will let me."

The woman was willing, and he carefully picked her up in his arms, while she cradled the children close to her chest. But she insisted before they went anywhere that he take her over to see the one she called Mrs. Xanatos, so he trotted over there, while warning her to shield the children's eyes. "They are too young to see… what we may see."

"I know, but I have to know if… Bethany, honey, you keep your eyes shut tight, okay? And you too, Alex; no peek-a-boo until I say so," the woman said, her voice tight with tension.

The form under the broken street lamp turned out to be a naked woman, with a massive bruise forming across her back and another one spreading across her forehead and the left side of her face. Battered, but when he looked closer… "Still breathing? _Unglaubich_."

Heinrich gently set his passengers down, so he could lift the mangled steel pole of the street lamp off the woman and toss it away. Then he crouched down next to the unconscious woman, frowning. "Back is very bad… maybe broke her… _ach_, bones in the back, a line inside, very important; I do not know your word for it."

"Spinal cord," the woman said quietly. "And you're right, she probably has spinal injuries, judging by where she was hit. Oh lord, if she ends up paralyzed…"

Heinrich looked around, wishing desperately that his brother Helmut and sister Helga would magically appear to help him out. There was no way he could glide with all four of them in his arms to take them to safety; he couldn't even climb a building with people in both arms! But he couldn't just leave them here either, not such easy prey for the other gargoyle once he awoke.

The woman he'd carried realized the same thing, and decided for him. "Listen, you—uh, do you have a name?" And when he told her his name was Heinrich, she continued, "My name's Anne. And you're not from New Orleans at all, are you? Oh, never mind, that's not important right now. Can you climb up to a rooftop while carrying the children in one arm? They have to be gotten to safety first. Leave me here with Mrs. Xanatos, while you take the children to the castle, or the nearest police station. The police surely know we were kidnapped, Mr. Xanatos or Detective Maza would have told the gargoyles, and they're probably back from New Orleans by now; tell any other gargoyle that you see where we are, and they'll come for us."

Heinrich hesitated. "Other gargoyles? Others that are not… like that one?" as he gestured back at the black one he'd knocked out.

"Not at all like him; the others are my friends! Now take the children and go, hurry! Bethany, you listen to me; you go with nice Mr. Heinrich, okay? You and Alex have to go now. I'll be fine, I promise!" Anne told her tearful daughter.

Knowing she was right and the children's safety was paramount, Heinrich gathered the children back up into his arms, murmuring, "Shhh, shhh, no crying now… I take you flying, flying like a bird!" And he was surprised but gratified when the little girl threw her arms around his neck, and the baby boy settled peacefully into the crook of his arm. Truly, these children had no fear of gargoyles!

But just as he turned away to climb the nearest wall, the other woman stirred and moaned. Sitting next to her, Anne said urgently, "Mrs. Xanatos? Fox, can you hear me? Don't move, you may have a spinal injury… Can you talk?"

Fox opened her eyes, lifted her head slightly, looked straight at him… and _snarled_.

And _**changed**_.

Fur sprouted all over as she heaved to her feet, her face elongated into a muzzle with jaws full of sharp teeth, teeth that showed in a snarl as the –the _**WEREWOLF **__reached out a clawed hand for him and the children_**!**

"_**Scheiße!**_" This entire city was a waking daymare! The thought flitted through Heinrich's mind as he turned and ran with the children, straight for the nearest wall—and straight up it, toe-talons digging into the concrete for purchase as adrenaline spurred him on faster than he'd ever gone before. His momentum didn't slow until he was almost two stories up, and by then he'd frantically shifted to squeeze both children to him with just one arm as he gripped the bricks with the other. The horrible snarls coming from directly below him spurred him on in the fastest three-limbed climb he'd ever done in his life; he made it up to the four-storied building's roof in mere seconds. Then, almost despite himself, he looked back down, fearing what he was sure he'd see. Without the children to feed on, the monster would probably turn and feast on poor Anne now…

But instead the red-furred werewolf was still glaring up at him, snapping and snarling, and attempting to climb up the building after him. And doing it; those claws were digging right into the bricks like gargoyle talons! It was already nearly three meters off the ground! And Anne was _dangling from the werewolf's tail_, hanging on for dear life and shouting, "Mrs. Xanatos, _no_! _He's a friend_! He's taking them to safety! Please, Fox, please listen! He's a _**friend**_!"

But 'Mrs. Xanatos' wasn't listening, and finally Heinrich just shook his head in disbelief and spread his wings to catch the night breeze. Even if that beast-woman actually had no intentions of harming the children, she didn't seem to like Heinrich at all, and he had no desire to face those claws of hers at close range. He launched from the roof on the far side of the warehouse, and quickly headed north with the children, towards the 23rd Precinct. If he could get inside the clocktower above the precinct, then perhaps he could find some way of alerting his two policeman friends of his presence there again; they were the only police officers that he knew would not shoot at first sight of him, and ask questions later.

He glanced back to see the werewolf gaining the rooftop, snarling, running to the edge of the roof, then stopping… and finally howling forlornly after him.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

After Were-Fox had dragged her up onto the roof, Anne finally let go of the bushy tail and tumbled to a stop on the concrete. "Oh, god…" she moaned, struggling to get to her hands and knees. She felt like she'd been thrown into a giant clothes dryer with a dozen pairs of sneakers; battered all over and dizzy from the pain. Her body asked, would it be okay to pass out now?

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_**Her cub **_was gone, taken where she could not follow! She howled in her grief and distress, then lay down on the hard surface and mourned her loss.

Then… someone came. Someone who smelled of _dominance_, of _**power**_. Her nose remembered him. The One who had briefly come to her, when she had first come to be her true self. The Alpha who had commanded her to not kill or even hurt anyone while searching for food, and she had obeyed, except for those times when she felt threatened by those who approached her.

The Alpha had sensed her return to herself, and come to see what was happening; come just in time to see her cub taken away. He told her not to worry about her cub; that the gargoyle was taking her cub to a safe lair, where he would be fed and taken care of. And before leaving, the Alpha told her that she should see to her other packmates…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Anne's brain must have decided that yes, it was okay to pass out. Because when she came to, she was lying on her back, with the tips of Were-Fox's claws caught in her coat sleeve; she must have been pawed at until she was turned over. Were-Fox was sniffing her, red-furred muzzle drifting from Anne's chest to her throat… and softly growling.

Anne swallowed hard, and shut her eyes. Please, God, let it be quick…

But her throat wasn't ripped out, so after a few seconds she opened her eyes again. Were-Fox was still growling softly, but just that, no more. So she whispered, "Mrs. Xanatos? Fox? Can you understand me? Can you… can you change back to human?"

Were-Fox cocked her head and the growl took on a slight whine, as if asking a question. So either she didn't understand what Anne had said… or she was asking why on Earth she'd want to turn back into a puny human again. Tonight, anything was possible.

"Great," Anne sighed, slowly sitting up. "I've been shot in the leg and I'm stuck freezing on a rooftop, with a friendly were-fox, but with a killer gargoyle down there on the street below us. At least Bethany and Alex should be safe now… I hope… please, dear God, let them be—_Owen_!"

She'd nearly forgotten about her friend and coworker in all the recent events, but now she recalled that second steel cell she'd seen inside the warehouse. Owen was inside that cell, she just knew it! But how to get him out of there, before Thailog woke up…

"…Well, it's worth a try. I just hope I don't get fired for this later…" Anne painfully got to her knees and crawled over to the edge of the roof that faced the warehouse they'd been in, with Were-Fox trotting curiously after her. Once they were facing the warehouse, she pointed at it and spoke in her most commanding voice; the one that could quell an entire roomful of rambunctious children if need be. "Fox! Go fetch Owen! He's in there, Fox! _Go fetch Owen_, _Fox_; _**fetch**_!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Owen had heard muffled noises outside his cell some time earlier. And since then, he hadn't felt any zaps of electricity… though that could mean that Thailog had decided to prolong the time between zaps, under the theory that the uncertainty factor would heighten the mental torture as well as the physical torture. Or it could mean that David Xanatos and/or the gargoyles had managed to discover the hostages' location and were coming to their rescue. But it had been some time since he'd heard those muffled sounds, and since then, no one had come for him.

But still, assuming that the worst Thailog would do to him was to zap him with electricity again, he'd shuffled over to the wall near the door and begun methodically rapping on it with his stone fist. Surely at least some slight sound would penetrate the soundproofing, to let others know he was inside. If not, there was nothing more he could do.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. He felt nothing through the stone fist, where his flesh hand would have been aching by now. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Though there was the question of how long he could keep this up before the stone finally cracked. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

And finally, a few feet away from him, the door was ripped off its hinges and thrown aside. Amid the horrid tearing and clanging of steel, a huge furry creature poked its muzzle inside and looked at him.

Owen raised his eyebrows. "Ah, Mrs. Xanatos. I trust the children are well?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

After Fox had bounded down off the roof, Anne had ripped off the hem of her coat to improvise a bandage around her bullet wound, still bleeding whenever she moved her leg. Just after she'd finished, she heard the crunching of talons into brick; someone was climbing up the side of the building. But was it Were-Fox, or Thailog? Anne was afraid to look over the edge and find out. She looked around for decent cover but found none, and finally just held her breath and waited.

And moments later Were-Fox scrabbled up the side and onto the roof… carrying Owen with her jaws, dragging him by his jacket and shirt-collar.

Once they were on the roof, Were-Fox opened her jaws and let go, and the shackled Owen dropped onto his hand and knees. He lurched to his hobbled and bare feet after she backed off, and stood there swaying for a moment as he remarked to the world at large, "A most undignified rescue."

"Owen! You're all right!" Anne would have run over to him, but given the agony in her leg, she settled for crawling over instead.

" 'All right' is a relative term, Anne… where are the children?" Owen asked.

"They should be safe now, at least I hope; a gargoyle named Heinrich came and took them to safety. …Please, Owen, don't give me that look; I know it was a strange gargoyle, but he _saved_ us from our kidnapper—it was Thailog! And when he rescued us by knocking Thailog out, Mrs. Xanatos was unconscious; I couldn't think of anything other than having him take the children to safety first, and come back for us later! I told him to take them to the castle, or a police precinct…"

Owen looked to the north and figured aloud, "The castle is roughly a twenty minute flight from here for the average gargoyle. Of course, that's assuming the castle's automated defenses will let him approach close enough for Mr. Xanatos to see his passengers…"

"Oh, God!" Anne clutched at her hair in dismay. "I hadn't thought about—what if he's _shot down_?!"

"The defense is programmed to give one warning shot straight over the approaching figure, before targeting it directly. And now that I am no longer surrounded by iron on all sides…" Owen closed his eyes for a moment… then hissed in pain through clenched teeth, his face a mask of agony as he shuddered all over. Anne bit her lip in worry and sheer helplessness, but the hissing and tremors subsided, and a moment later Owen opened his eyes again. "I could not detect any immediate danger to Alexander. Wherever he is, for the moment he is feeling safe and well."

"If he's safe and well, then why were you in such pain?!" Anne demanded.

"Because rousing my Second Sight to any useful degree leaves me vulnerable to iron," Owen said as he pointedly rattled the steel manacles on his wrists and ankles. "And Thailog is well aware of that vulnerability… He knows about Puck, Anne. He knows, and he tried to enslave me to his will; to command the Puck like a servant."

"He knows?" Anne swallowed hard, thinking about Alexander and Bethany's part-Fey nature. Was their secret known to Thailog too?

"Yes. In hindsight, it's obvious that Demona told him while they were together; she was well aware of my dual nature, from our first meeting. But he made no mention of the children's Fey blood and powers, so perhaps their secret is still safe. Perhaps…" Owen turned to where Were-Fox was sitting on her haunches looking at them both, and rattled the chains of his manacles suggestively. "Mrs. Xanatos, if you wouldn't mind?"

But Were-Fox just cocked her head at him, and Anne sighed. "I don't think she understands you right now, Owen. But if we can get you out of those things, can you change her back?"

Owen shook his head. "Not under the geas Oberon bound me with. Unless she inadvertently threatens her own son, and I'd rather not arrange for that to happen. Correct me if I am wrong, but this instance of change was caused by no outside force; she used her magic on herself, yes?"

"Yes; it was the only way we could break out of our cell. And after Thailog knocked her out, she turned human again… but when she woke up, she turned back into this. If we can get her home, would any of the herbs in the windowboxes turn her back to human?"

Owen shook his head. "The moley that we used on the pigeons might work on her, since it can cancel out most transformative enchantments, but it is exceedingly rare; it took weeks to obtain the small amount we used to turn the Quarrymen back to human. Since she assumed this form of her own free will, she should be able to turn back again of her own free will… when she is ready. But only she may decide when that will be. And in the meantime, there is the question of--"

But Fox had been subtly growing more agitated while he'd been talking, shifting from paw to paw, and suddenly she leaped to her feet, then bounded over the edge and down the side of the building again. "Mrs. Xanatos!" Anne reached futilely after her. "Where's she going? Why did she leave?"

Owen sighed and sat down on the roof, looking very weary but also relieved. "She left because she is hungry. And thank Daanu, she doesn't see us as _food_."

"…oh." There were so many questions Anne could have asked just then, but she decided that tonight, she really didn't want the answers to any of them. So she just huddled next to Owen for warmth and shivered in the freezing night winds that were whistling over the roof, hoping that the children were safe now, and hoping that one of their friends would come for them before Thailog did… or before they died of exposure.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Heinrich reached the 23rd Precinct without seeing any other gargoyles in the air, and he didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved at that. With no way of knowing which gargoyles were Anne's friends, and which were child-killing savages…

The workers had indeed begun construction on the clocktower, beginning by clearing out much the remaining debris from the explosion that had ruined it. As Heinrich landed and cautiously made his way down through the levels, he discovered that even the remaining books from the old library were gone, but the workers hadn't done a good job of sweeping up; plenty of gravel from his stay and from the other gargoyles' stay still lay scattered in corners here and there.

The children were crying, freezing cold from their flight through the winter air, so he spent a few minutes just sitting with them, wrapping his wings around them and blowing on their hands to warm their tiny fingers. He dug around in his cargo pants pocket to find the snack he'd packed for after his explorations, an apple and a bratwurst sausage; he sliced them into small pieces with a talon, then used a knuckle to repeatedly mash one thick slice of apple until it was a crude applesauce. Crooning reassuringly, he carefully nudged the applesauce into the baby's mouth with the pad of his thumb, and he ate eagerly, while the little girl ate the rest of the apple and sausage.

Once they were warm and fed, he carefully set the children down on the floor, cradling the infant boy in the little girl's lap. He glanced at the stairwell that the workers used for going up and down to street level, but chose to focus on the trapdoor in the corner; the one that his friends had told him led into a broom closet in the police station below. "You stay here, okay? I go try to get help. We maybe get some nice police officers here, yes?"

"With cookies?" the little girl asked hopefully. "Unca Matt always brings me lemon cookies."

"Ah… maybe cookies, maybe other food; we will see." The infant boy was fussing again, so Heinrich told him soothingly, "And more food for you, too; if no police officers soon, then we go flying again, to my friend the priest, and he will surely have food for you. Some good warm milk in your stomach, and you will feel much better…" He didn't expect the infant to understand him, but just the sound of his voice seemed to soothe the baby for a few moments. Long enough for him to scoop up some scattered gravel in one hand, then open the trapdoor and put one foot on the ladder, pushing it down so he could descend.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Elisa glanced worriedly over at her partner, wondering if—make that _when_—he would crack. Ever since they'd gotten the news about the kidnapping, Matt had been grim as Death, giving terse answers to any question asked of him when he'd answered at all.

Elisa knew Matt feared the worst, and so did she. Fox and Alexander Xanatos, the wife and son of the billionaire, were the valuable hostages, and the only ones mentioned by the kidnapper in the ransom call. Anne and Bethany Marsden, the nanny and the nanny's child… were extras. And since Philip Marsden and Anne's parents were dead, they had no known relatives who would have been expected to pay a ransom for their return.

Xanatos swore to Elisa and the others that he'd offered to pay an extra twenty million for Owen, Bethany and Anne's safe return as well, but the kidnapper had only laughed in response before hanging up. Elisa had the awful feeling that it meant Owen, Anne and Bethany were already dead; that they had been shot and discarded like used present wrappings, once the primary kidnap victims had been secured.

Elisa doubted that Owen was actually dead; she'd never really trusted the man and certainly not the Fey within him, and figured that he'd probably let his human body 'die' while Puck went hightailing back to Avalon. But Little Bethany, such a sweet and innocent child, who sometimes called Matt her Daddy… and Anne, good-natured Anne who was so caring and gentle with children, and willing to see the best in everybody… the thought that they had been callously murdered made Elisa want to scream.

And if she felt that way, how much worse did Matt feel? As much as he'd tried to deny it, he was at least halfway in love with Anne already. And the Winnie-the-Pooh toy that Matt had bought for little Bethany's Christmas present, a present for a holiday Matt didn't even personally celebrate, still sat in its brightly-wrapped box on his desk…

The goddamned FBI hadn't done anything to try stopping the gargoyles from searching in their own way and methods—not that there was much they could have done to stop them anyway-- but the agents hadn't voluntarily offered any information to help them, either. And they still refused to let Matt and Elisa in on what they knew. If not for the bugs planted in their office, the surveillance that Martha was still faithfully listening in on for any scraps of information the gargoyles could glean, they'd have no access to the FBI's operation at all.

It had made sense for the FBI to be called in on the case instead of the police; Elisa knew that. They had an entire division devoted to kidnapping cases, and more resources than the NYPD could ever hope to have. But it was so unbelievably frustrating to have to sit on the sidelines and do nothing, when she and Matt _**knew**_ the victims! Elisa wanted to be out there chasing down every possible lead, shaking down Dracon's men—she just _knew_ in her guts that Tony Dracon was behind the kidnapping—and she knew Matt wanted to do all that and a helluva lot more.

So much was at stake, and what were she and Matt doing? Filling out goddamned paperwork, that's what. When they'd reported for duty that night, they'd been planning for it to be for only a few minutes before leaving again. But Captain Chavez had told them they were long overdue for a report on their analysis of all the gargoyle sightings for the past month; surely some patterns should have emerged by now, patterns that could tell them where to look for "the gargoyles' point of origin; their nest or whatever."

"But-but Captain, what about all those reports that are coming in tonight? Hayden told us as we came through the door that there are reports coming in tonight of gargoyles committing even more property damage, and it's still going on! Shouldn't we be investigating that?" Matt had pleaded, and Elisa had fervently seconded. Because that 'property damage' was happening at Dracon's bases, and leaving to investigate them would give Elisa and Matt all the excuse they needed to officially join the search, instead of pretending they still knew nothing about the kidnapping.

"I've got other people on that already; patrols are responding to those reports as they occur. And while they haven't caught any gargoyles, officers have already called in about some very interesting discoveries at four of those locations, finds that Vice is taking a closer look at. But from you two, I want that analysis and report. Tonight!" Chavez had barked, and they hadn't dared outright refuse her; they'd been in enough trouble with her already in the last few months.

Fussing and fuming while going through the six-inch-high stack of papers on her desk, Elisa didn't notice when the door to the broom closet several feet away opened a few inches, though nobody was anywhere near it. She didn't notice when something was thrown out onto the floor, and the door quietly closed again. But a few minutes later she noticed when Johansson, on his way to get more coffee, nearly stumbled, swore and said angrily, "Who the hell tracked in all this gravel and crud on the floor?!"

The two words had become associated in Elisa's mind in the last few years: _gravel _= _gargoyles_. She jumped up from her desk, stared at the floor with a scattering of gravel on it, then at the broom closet nearby, with its access to the clocktower. The clan all had radios, even the folks from New Orleans, and Brooklyn discreetly pinged the communicator in her jacket collar whenever he was ready with another report. So who would need to attract her attention this way?

The GTF's two rookies had also looked up at Johansson's outburst, and now Carter jumped up and headed straight for the brook closet, announcing, "Don't worry, I'll clean it up!" He opened the door just enough to squeeze inside, then emerged a moment later with the broom and dustpan.

Which Elisa snatched from his grip. "_**I'll**_ take care of it. The gravel is my fault; I—I emptied out my shoes here after a walk in the park. On gravel paths!" she said firmly.

James Carter stared at her. "Uh, really, detective, I can take care of it; I mean, it's sort-of my duty as low man on the totem pole here, right?"

"No, it's not! Everyone is expected to clean up their own messes, and for anything more than that we have the janitorial staff that comes in." Elisa tried to smile sweetly at him, but she was sure that if she was really a gargoyle she'd be baring her fangs instead as she finished, "_I insist_."

So Carter reluctantly handed over the broom and dustpan, and she quickly swept up, aware by now that several pairs of eyes were on her, or had been; several of the officers in the precinct had noticed the small confrontation, but as she swept up, most of them just shrugged and returned to their duties. But Carter, their other rookie Davis and Matt were all staring at her. And Matt, when he wasn't staring at her, was staring intently up at the ceiling as if he hoped to look right through it with X-Ray vision. He knew what the gravel meant, too.

Elisa carefully swept up the gravel, then made a point of dumping it all in her own wastebasket. Then she went into the broom closet with the broom and dustpan, and closed the door behind her. And as soon as the door was shut she was yanking on the dropdown ladder, and scrambling up it before it was all the way down.

Was it Brooklyn, or Lexington? Had their communications been compromised? Had they discovered that the kidnapper or the FBI was listening in on them? Elisa feared the worst, as she opened the trapdoor and poked her head out.

But she was still surprised by what she saw a few feet away: a gray male gargoyle with blood-red hair, a total stranger, sitting on the floor and swaying back and forth with two children in his lap, while singing softly to them in what sounded like German, "_Guten Abend, gute Nacht, mit Rosen bedacht; Mit Naeglein besteckt_…" The gargoyle's voice trailed off as he noticed her, and his eyes went wide.

"Who the hell are you?" Elisa couldn't help asking. "And how did you—Bethany?! Oh God, Bethany! Alexander!" as she recognized the children, then scrambled up the ladder and into the room, reaching eagerly for them.

The gargoyle let her pluck the children from his lap and hug them tightly, then scooted back slightly, eyeing the gun in her shoulder holster. He said to her earnestly, speaking with a guttural German accent, "I did not hurt them. I rescued them, from a bad gargoyle! I speak truth, I would never hurt children!"

"He's telling the truth, detective," a voice came from behind her, and she turned to see Carter scrambling up the ladder and into the room too, with Davis right behind him. "Don't shoot him, please!" he begged her. "Some of these gargoyles are really good guys!"

"Mister Heinie is nice!" Bethany chirped from where she was hugging Elisa tightly about the neck. "C'n I have some cookies now?"

Elisa stared at her rookies, then at the gargoyle, then laughed aloud in sheer relief. Just as Matt came surging up the ladder too, probably with the idea of helping her defend the gargoyle from the rookies. But at sight of the kids in Elisa's arms, he forgot all about that, joyfully bellowing "_**Bethany!**_" as he almost flew up the last few steps into the library, and snatched Bethany away from Elisa. Matt literally fell to his knees beside the trapdoor once the little girl was in his arms, holding her tightly while saying in a not-quite-sob, "I was so worried…"

Still shaking her head in amused disbelief, Elisa turned back to the gargoyle and asked, "So, uh—Mister Heinie, was it? How long have you been in town?"

"Uh… four weeks and two days," Heinie told her, still wide-eyed. "You… you are not afraid? You know of other gargoyles?"

"I sure do," Elisa said while Carter and Davis stared at her open-mouthed. She turned to the rookies and said firmly, "You two are going to have a long talk with me and Matt after this is all over, okay? A talk about keeping secrets from your superiors… though I guess that runs both ways. Never mind, we'll talk about it over dinner or something," she said before turning back to the gargoyle. "Heinie, who did you say you rescued the kids from?"

"Heinrich; my name is Heinrich," the gargoyle almost apologetically corrected her. "Little children, sometimes they make mistakes, but adults..."

"Right, sorry; Heinrich. Heinrich, who did you say you rescued the kids from? And were there any adults with them?"

"A woman with brown hair and green eyes, five-foot-four, slender build," Matt interrupted, still holding Bethany. "Another woman with red hair, five-foot-nine; and a blond-haired man, five-foot-nine, usually wears glasses. Did you see any of them?"

Alexander had been quiet while Heinrich had been holding him, but all the noise everyone had been making must have been upsetting him, because now he let out an ear-splitting wail. Elisa hurriedly rocked him, saying, "Sssh, sssh, Alex; we'll take you to see your daddy soon, I promise!"

"What's going on up here?" a new voice demanded, and Johansson poked his head up through the trapdoor too. "Are there kids up here? I thought I heard--" Then Johansson saw Heinrich, and his eyes bugged out. "SHIT! A _**gargoyle**_!"

Still on his knees next to the opening, and still holding Bethany to him with one hand, Matt reached over with the other and grabbed Johansson under the jaw, forcibly shutting his mouth before he could yell anything more, and preventing him from ducking back down the ladder. "That's right, a gargoyle. _Now shut the fuck up__**!**_ And if you go for your gun or yell for help, I swear I'll kick your ass clear to Jersey! …Sorry, Bethany. Uncle Matt uses bad words sometimes when he's upset. Don't tell your mommy, okay?"

After glances and shrugs at each other, Carter and Davis together reached down and bodily hauled Johansson up the ladder and into the room. "In for a penny, in for a pound," Elisa murmured to herself while rocking the wailing Alexander, and wondering frantically what to do next.

Johansson was partnered with Hayden, the most vocal anti-gargoyle and pro-Quarrymen sympathizer in the precinct; there were suspicions that Hayden had even joined the Quarrymen and gotten his own hood and hammer, despite Captain Chavez's official warning against joining any organization that was under investigation by the DA. If Hayden came up too, looking for his partner, or if Johansson went back down and told him… There'd be utter chaos, and somebody would get hurt for sure. But what could they do? They couldn't just hold a fellow officer against his will!

She remembered that Johansson had three kids, and one of them had just been fitted for braces while another one was falling behind in Math and needed special tutoring. Trying to pay for everything on his patrolman's salary, there was no doubt that Johansson needed money… and Xanatos had money.

As soon as Alexander stopped wailing long enough to take a breath, Elisa said forcefully, "Johansson, here's the deal. Believe it or not, this gargoyle is actually _a good guy_. A _very_ good guy; he just rescued these children from a kidnapper! And he brought them into the police station this way because he knew he couldn't come in the front door without getting shot. So we're going to let him go, _despite_ the captain's orders to bring in every gargoyle we can, because it's the right thing to do. We won't penalize anyone--or _anything_--for saving children's lives! Got it? Now if you can keep your mouth shut about this, and run down to the convenience store on the corner to get a bottle of ready-made baby formula for the baby (_sniff--ewww_) and some disposable diapers and diaper-wipes, I can guarantee that you will _personally_ be awarded a thousand dollars—hell, probably _two_ thousand—by a very grateful David Xanatos. This baby is his son, and we'll give _you_ the credit for saving and taking care of him, understand? But if you risk _our_ badges by saying one word about a gargoyle up here, the deal's off! So if you want to give your own kids one helluva Christmas present, keep your mouth shut about the gargoyle and go buy some baby stuff—and hurry!"

Johansson stared at her, then gave a what-the-hell shrug and agreed before going back down the ladder. Elisa stood over the trapdoor and cocked her head to listen, and faintly heard Johansson telling some other cops that must have gathered outside the broom closet out of curiosity, "It's nothing, just some GTF business; giving their rookies a little talking to. Come on, everyone give them some privacy; you know how much worse it feels if you're being yelled at in front of an audience. Now excuse me, I've got some errands to run…"

"Pretty free-spending with Xanatos's money, aren't you, partner?" Matt commented with a wry grin.

"He can afford it," Elisa retorted, still feeling sick inside from what she'd just done. But dammit, they couldn't endanger the gargoyle, or the kids in the room with them… "Now, Heinrich, tell us: were there any adults with these kids? Where did you find them, and who were they kidnapped by?"

Moments later, the humans were all clustered around the foldout map of Manhattan that Heinrich kept in his pants pocket, while he pointed out the street and intersection that he'd rescued the children from. After hearing everything Heinrich had to say--and after telling everyone she'd explain _later _about the black gargoyle and the werewolf--Elisa handed baby Alexander over to Carter, scampered down the ladder to grab her jacket off the back of her chair, then ran back up to the old library. "Matt, you stay here with the kids, while I--"

"Like Hell!" Matt interrupted fiercely. "Carter and Davis can stay with the kids; I'm coming with you!" Though his actions didn't quite match his words; he was trying to hand Bethany over to Davis, but the little girl was gripping his jacket with both hands, hooking her little legs around his waist and stubbornly refusing to be handed over.

"Matt, Anne would want you to take care of her little girl, and you know it! And it would probably strain Heinrich to carry both of us," Elisa said as she pulled her jacket on. And besides, if it turned out that Were-Fox had turned on Anne as the nearest source of food… Elisa didn't want Matt to see it.

She turned on the communicator in her jacket lapel and said into it, "Brooklyn, call off the operation; we know where they are!"

"What'd you say—you know where they are?" Brooklyn's voice came tinnily out of the comm unit, which she turned outwards so everyone could hear. They heard him say faintly, as if overhearing talk to someone else, "_Everybody stop_! …_Okay, finish knocking that one out. Elisa has a location_!" Then louder,"Go ahead, Elisa; where?"

"The kids are safe, here at the 23rd Precinct. We don't know about Fox and Owen, but Anne should be on top of a warehouse," and Elisa gave the location. "I'm heading there now with a new friend, but whichever team is closest has to head there _this instant_! Thailog's the one who kidnapped them; he's back--and so is the Were-Fox!"

After saying something in Gaelic that Elisa thought was probably an expletive, Brooklyn said, "Broadway's team should be only eight blocks away from there, but we'll _**all**_ head there now. With those two on the loose, we'll need every wing and talon we've got!" Then Brooklyn severed contact so he could switch to the other band, and tell the other teams the news.

"Gargoyle teams are on their way," Elisa said to Matt and the rookies, both of whom had been staring at her wide-eyed for the last few minutes. She checked her gun to make sure it was fully loaded, then said, "Okay, Heinrich; take me back to where you left Anne!"

Heinrich had been staring at her just as wide-eyed as the rookies, but now he nodded tersely, picked her up in his arms and ran with her up the stairs to the clocktower. Behind her, she heard one of the rookies say accusingly to Matt, "We may have been keeping Heinrich a secret, but there's a _lot more_ that you haven't been telling us…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"_Thailog_, dammit! Why the hell didn't we think of Thailog?!" Brooklyn berated himself as he, Isabel and Hollywood climbed away from the Dracon hangout they'd just wrecked, to take to the sky again.

"Because everyone thought he was dead?" Isabel offered as she spread her wings to glide and launched. "That's what you said back in New Orleans, anyway. And then the ransom demand for a gargoyle's head… coming from a gargoyle himself! St. Dismas, that's perverted!"

"Thailog… is not dead?" Hollywood said, looking stunned and still standing on the rooftop instead of launching.

Brooklyn wheeled about and looked at Hollywood sharply, inwardly cursing; their mission might have just gotten a lot more complicated. Hollywood and the other clones had been programmed to obey Thailog…

Brooklyn said aloud, "That's right. Thailog is alive, Hollywood. Now think about this: he's been alive all this time, and he _never came back_ for you and the others. Never even tried, when he had to know where you were. Instead, Talon's been your leader for the last few months, and he's treated you a lot better than Thailog ever did, hasn't he? Talon is a good leader, while Thailog was a very bad leader… and now he's kidnapped Anne and little innocent Bethany! Hollywood, you said earlier tonight that you'd accept my leadership. So who are you going to obey now; me or Thailog?!"

Hollywood said slowly, as his stunned look transmuted into a horrific scowl, "If Thailog took Bethany… I will follow you. And I will _hurt _Thailog," as his wings flared out.

"Good to hear," Brooklyn said with a short nod, before keying his radio to call the other teams.

Everyone responded with shock that Thailog was behind the kidnapping, and agreement to head as fast as possible for the address Elisa had given them. Though Talon said there'd be a slight delay for his team: "Cassius took a bullet through his left wing on the raid we finished just before you called. He said he'd dealt with worse on patrols and didn't need Cecelia to come running, he could still fight; he just needed a quick patch job to stop the bleeding and keep the hole from getting worse. So I was doing the interrogating while he and Lucretia went looking for a bathroom they could break into, for a first aid kit. Give me a few minutes to go find them and tell them, and we'll be on our way…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

At that moment, two winged figures stood on the fire escape outside an apartment building, glancing through the window into a dark apartment and holding a near-silent conference between themselves. With one last nod of agreement, they broke the glass of the window and quickly jumped inside the apartment

_**-boom- -boom-**_

And were shot dead by two shotgun blasts in quick succession.

As the gargoyles crumpled to the carpet, Mitchell Starsky tossed aside the shotgun he'd just emptied into them, and stood up with the handgun he'd had ready in his lap. He kept it trained on the gargoyles as he left the shadowed bedroom corner he'd been sitting in and slowly advanced towards them, but they didn't move. If they weren't dead, then they were definitely unconscious and bleeding profusely all over the carpet. His wife Natalie would throw a fit when she saw the mess, but at least she'd be alive to yell at him. If he hadn't told her to take the kids to a hotel, while he stayed behind to fake everyone's presences in the beds while he waited for the gargoyles he knew would arrive…

With the Quarrymen's headquarters blown up, he couldn't call for his buddies to come collect the gargoyles, so he did the next best thing. Still keeping a healthy distance from the gargoyles and keeping his gun trained on them, he sidled over to the bedroom phone and called the police. He gave them his name and address, and told them that he'd encountered two gargoyles breaking into his home, but shot them both before they could do any harm.

The 911 operator sounded stunned as she said she'd send the police over right away, and Mitchell smiled sardonically. She was probably stunned that, after months of that idiotic Gargoyles Task Force trying and utterly failing to do anything about the gargoyles, a civilian was doing their job for them. As he hung up the phone and turned on the bedside lamp, Mitchell wondered whether his actions tonight would result in the mayor of New York finally doing the smart thing and deputizing the Quarrymen, making them officially sanctioned gargoyle hunters instead of vigilantes.

Then he took a closer look at the gargoyles on the floor, illuminated by the bedside lamp. The larger one had a dark red hide, while the slightly smaller one was dark blue in color. But their heads…

Their heads were covered by ski masks that matched their hide colors, and he gingerly tugged off the dark blue one, to reveal pink and unmistakably human flesh underneath. Instead of real gargoyles, they were people in costumes!? What the fuck?!

…Dear God, instead of gargoyles, he'd just shot _two of his own kind__**!**_

…Two of his species who had broken into his apartment in the middle of the night, Mitchell reminded himself. Nobody did that unless they meant no good, so self-defense was still warranted, right? Right?

And these bastards had definitely had ill intentions towards him and his family, Mitchell realized as he looked them over. They were wearing tool belts over their gargoyle costumes, and in each one's belt were sets of handcuffs, saps for beating people unconscious, and some nasty-looking weapons that resembled claws; three long steel tips on each weapon, to simulate gargoyle claws. Mitchell _knew_, looking at those deadly sharp clawtips, that they'd intended to use those restraints and weapons on him and his family. But why the Hell would crooks wearing gargoyle costumes break into the home of a man who was known by all his friends and neighbors as a Quarryman?

For the first time since hearing about it, Mitchell wondered if the police had been right after all about the big battle that had taken place just before Thanksgiving. The police and most of the newspapers had decided that instead of fighting gargoyles, eleven Quarrymen had lost their lives fighting criminals in gargoyle costumes. He'd been so sure that the police had all been idiots, because nobody would be so stupid as to go up against known gargoyle-hunters in a gargoyle costume; that would be like crashing a Black Panthers gang party in a KKK costume! But now, with this evidence before him…

What was going on? Who was behind this?

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_To be continued in: __**Regroup**_


	8. Regroup

**10.8: Regroup**

On the rooftop, Anne was very worried about Owen.

While they waited for rescue, they traded stories about what had happened to them while they were held prisoner, and Anne had been horrified about what had happened to Owen while under Thailog's control. Repeated electrical shocks, and allowed no food, water or sleep… "Well, I'm sorry I didn't bring any of our food or water out of our cell, but at least you can sleep now," Anne had told him. "I'll keep watch; you can just relax with your head in my lap if you like. Don't worry, considering the circumstances no one's going to care about propriety…"

But Owen had shaken his head. "I must stay awake until rescue comes. Because if Thailog comes for us first…"

"If he comes for us first, we're both unarmed and helpless," Anne had said bluntly. "There's nothing we could do against him, so you might as well get some sleep before he starts torturing you again!"

"Unarmed, yes. But not helpless," Owen had countered, showing his teeth; it was more of a snarl than a smile, an expression that gave Anne shivers. "I have determined that Thailog's plan interferes with Puck's duty to teach and protect Alexander. Therefore, if Thailog comes and attempts to take me captive again, Oberon's geas will allow me to use magic against him."

"And I'm all for you turning him into a grease spot on the floor, but you've still got those shackles on!" as Anne pointed to the cold steel still encircling Owen's wrists and ankles. "Earlier you could barely use your powers to check on Alexander, because using magic with all that iron against your skin hurt so much!"

Owen nodded shortly. "Yes, it will be painful to become the Puck while shackled; to be more specific, it will be agonizing in the extreme. But if I can withstand the pain for just one moment… if Thailog comes for us, I'll only need one moment…!"

So they waited, huddled together against the freezing winds. Despite Owen's objections, Anne took her shoes off just long enough to remove her socks, and tugged her socks over Owen's bare feet. The socks were too small but they gave Owen's feet at least a little protection against the cold, even if her own ankles were now covered with goose bumps.

But Owen needed more than socks for keeping warm; Thailog had also taken his overcoat, and the suit he wore had only a lightweight jacket. Owen was continually shivering… or at least, Anne hoped they were shivers from the cold, and not uncontrollable twitches from all those electrical shocks.

They waited… and waited… and finally, peering up into the sky, Anne glimpsed shapes gliding towards them, obscuring patches of the starry sky. The shapes came closer, closer… but they didn't land. "It's the clan, I know it's the clan! But why aren't they coming down to help us?!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

On their way to the warehouse that Elisa had given them for an address, Brooklyn used his radio to caution everyone, "Expect traps, and nasty surprises; Thailog is a master at those. Don't take _anything_ you see at face value! Look it over from a distance at least twice before you get too close."

Then, while still transmitting to the group, he switched to Gaelic. When the clan had woken up in this new world, they'd found themselves speaking the language of its people as easily as their native tongue. More easily, in fact; whatever language spell had been cast on them had been so effective, they even _thought_ in Modern American English instead of the Gaelic spoken in 10th Century Scotland. But they could still speak their native tongue, if they made an effort, and they could certainly understand it.

And since almost nobody else in the modern era could understand it, it made for an effective secret code when they needed to convey sensitive information. Brooklyn said in Gaelic, "_Rookery brothers, we must keep an eye on those gargoyles who came from underground. Remember that the one we hunt now was once their leader, and old loyalties can be strong. The one who glides beside me has said he no longer follows his old leader, but… we must be cautious_."

Lexington spoke on the broadcast frequency, also in Gaelic and with a grim tone. "_Aye, brothers. It is easy to say brave things when far from your foe, but when you get within talons' reach of him, and he within talon's reach of you_…"

"_I understand_," was all Broadway said in response. Broadway hadn't sounded happy either, but that meant the point had gotten across; Brooklyn nodded to himself as he put his radio away again.

Gliding alongside him, Isabel gave Brooklyn a suspicious look. "What was all that about?"

"Just some old clan wisdom. Can we talk about it later?" Brooklyn didn't want to lie to his mate, but he couldn't explain himself either; not with Hollywood only a wingspan away and also listening in. "Later, I promise."

Coming from north-northeast, Brooklyn's team arrived at the block the warehouse was on roughly thirty seconds behind Broadway's team, coming from northwest. And from due north came Lexington's team, gliding fast; so fast that Brooklyn thought they might reach the warehouse a few seconds before him. Craning his neck over his shoulder and squinting, he thought he could see Adam's team and Claw's team approaching, both just over a mile away.

Broadway said into his radio, "We're here; I see Anne and Owen on the roof, but no sign of—no, Malibu, wait! We don't go down to rescue Anne until after we've made Thailog hasn't put a _trap_ for us down there!"

"Circle the building, high and low," Brooklyn directed. "No one lands until at least three teams are present! Then we send down two people, just two at first, to see what happens at close range."

So Broadway's team circled the building and looked for traps until Lexington and Brooklyn's teams showed up. Then Lexington and Rebecca went down; two with lightning-quick reflexes, who would be best at dodging a trap that sprang up around them or weapons fired at them. They landed, looked around, then gave a thumbs-up towards the people waiting in the sky before hurrying over to the people that had been stranded on the roof.

So Brooklyn and everyone else landed as well; Brooklyn holding his breath the whole time, but when no electrified nets or other traps sprang out at them after touching down, he relaxed slightly and set his mind on other matters. Lexington and Rebecca were huddled with their wings wrapped around Owen and Anne, trying to warm them; the poor humans looked half-frozen. "Feathered wings should be even more insulating. Isabel, Robert, you've got warming duties."

Without hesitation, Isabel and Robert crouched down next to Anne and Owen, wrapping their wings around them while Lexington and Rebecca backed off. "You may have heard of me already, but don't worry, this doesn't mean anything beyond getting you warm again," Robert said ruefully, his equine muzzle next to Owen's ear.

"Q-quite honestly, I w-wasn't thinking of it meaning anything else," Owen said through chattering teeth.

Brooklyn continued, "Broadway, you're the lookout; keep a sharp eye out until Claw's team gets here in another few minutes. When they do, send Martin to me, but Claw and Burbank will join you on lookout while Cecelia takes care of injuries. Everyone else, let's go hunting for Thailog! Teams of three again; Lexington and Rebecca, take Malibu. Etienne, you're with me and Hollywood. And remember, everyone, we're hunting a literal _evil genius_! Keep sharp, and expect the worst!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Fifteen minutes after leaving the precinct, Elisa and Heinrich arrived at the warehouse. They found five gargoyles and Claw the mutate standing guard over Anne and Owen, while several others were gliding about searching the streets and nearby buildings. "Looking for Thailog," Broadway explained to her while on his knees, where he was carefully prying apart and breaking the shackles that had been put on Owen's legs. "Ouch, those are some nasty burn marks on your ankles, Owen. Let me guess, iron poisoning?"

"And electrical burns. Detective, the gargoyles said the children are safe?" Owen asked her from where he was sitting, while wrapped in Robert's blue feathered wings.

"Matt has them with him at the 23rd Precinct; they're fine," Elisa said reassuringly.

"Oh, thank God," Anne sighed from where she was sitting while Isabel was keeping wings wrapped around her body, Cecelia was bandaging her leg, and Burbank was patting her hand in comfort and telling her that Cecelia would make it all better. "Heinrich, thank you so much for everything you've done!"

"You're Heinrich, eh? I'm Broadway; glad to meet you," Broadway said with a grin as he held his hand out in welcome. "Anne was just telling us about how you took Thailog out with just one punch; pretty impressive!"

Heinrich shrugged and looked mildly embarrassed. "Not a punch; I landed on him. A straight drop from twenty, maybe twenty-five meters up; I landed so hard that he went down like—how do you say it? A house of cards."

"Good strategy, when it comes to dealing with Thailog; he's not a guy we can afford to pull punches with. So where are you from?" Broadway asked.

And by the time Heinrich had properly introduced himself and explained why he'd come to Manhattan, most of the other gargoyles had finished their search and returned, shaking their heads. Brooklyn reported, "No sign of Thailog, except for the blood on the pavement. He's definitely wounded, so he shouldn't have gone that far, but the trail he left goes back into the warehouse and stops. Judging by the tire tracks we found and the traces of exhaust fumes, we think he had a truck of some kind inside the warehouse, and he got into it and drove off while Anne and Owen were alone up here."

"Well, damn," Elisa sighed. "But at least he doesn't have any hostages with him."

"Lexington, Rebecca and Malibu are still following an old trail we found; too old to lead where Thailog fled to, but it might lead us to where he came from, since it doesn't look like he was sleeping inside the warehouse. So who's our new friend? You're the one Anne told us about, the one who rescued her and the kids, right?" Brooklyn asked as he gave Heinrich a smile and a warrior's forearm clasp.

"Yes; I am Heinrich," the German gargoyle said with a grin.

And Talon, who had just landed on the roof with Lucretia and Cassius, gave a start. "Heinrich? _You're_ Heinrich? Malibu's new friend?"

Brooklyn looked at Talon, then back at Heinrich. "You've met my clone, huh?"

"Your… clone?" Heinrich asked in puzzlement. "Six nights ago I met a gargoyle who looked much like you, but different colors; his name was Malibu."

"Ohhh, crap." Talon covered his face with a furred hand. "Heinrich, I am _**so**_ sorry…"

Elisa was about to ask what her brother was so sorry about, but looked off to the north instead, towards the faint but growing sound of beating rotors; she peered into the night to see a helicopter approaching from the north, heading straight for them at a fast clip. "Oh, no… please, someone, tell me that's not the Quarrymen!" She'd been worried about them having another facility full of equipment and vehicles besides the warehouse that had been hit last night. If they attacked now, when the clan had wounded civilians on the roof…

Brooklyn grinned. "Nope, I can see the markings already; that's Xanatos. I called him right after I got all the teams moving in this direction, and he said he'd be on his way."

Moments later the gargoyles were clearing a landing zone, and the helicopter was coming in for a landing on the roof. Xanatos jumped out of the cockpit on the passenger side before the rotors stopped turning, and ran over to where Owen and Anne were sitting. He crouched down to their level and almost hugged Owen, but when the stiffly proper gentleman pulled back slightly he settled for just vigorously shaking his flesh hand and administering a brotherly slap on the back; the hug was given to Anne instead. "Thank God you're both okay, too!"

After straightening up, Xanatos told Elisa, "A call was patched through to me while en route, an Officer Johansson from your precinct; he confirmed Brooklyn's report that the kids were safe at the 23rd. But he didn't tell me how they got there; your doing?"

"Nope, somebody else's, though you do need to give Johansson a couple thousand dollars; we had to bribe him to keep him from sounding the alarm on the _real_ hero," Elisa said, reaching back to grab Heinrich by the wrist and pull him forward. "Meet Heinrich; he's from Germany, and came here a few weeks ago to look for more gargoyles. He came across Thailog stalking Anne and the kids after their escape, just about to kill them, and knocked the bastard out; then Anne had him take the kids to safety."

Xanatos shook Heinrich's hand and said fervently, "If there's anything I can ever do for you, just name it! I owe you big!"

"As do I," Owen said as he limped over, leaning on Lexington's shoulders. "For saving Bethany and Alexander, the Puck owes you a great boon. But this is neither the time nor place for discussing that. Mr. Xanatos, I suggest we depart for the 23rd Precinct; the hunt for Mrs. Xanatos in her current form can wait until the children and Anne are safely inside the castle."

"Hey, Lex, what'd you find?" Brooklyn asked, looking off to the right.

Elisa looked over just as Lexington came in for a landing with Rebecca and Malibu; Rebecca was holding what appeared at first glance to be a plastic box. "We found out where Thailog had been holed up!" Lexington said triumphantly. "We tracked his scent and talon-marks up to a room in that building," as he pointed to the north and west of the warehouse. "There was a computer setup in there, security monitors and controls for the cells inside the warehouse. We grabbed the computer to see if we can find more clues to Thailog's plans on its hard drive," Lexington explained as Rebecca flourished the CPU with a grin.

"Great idea! Xanatos, how about you take this with you to the castle? Right now we need to find Fox, before she does something we'll all regret," Elisa said firmly, gesturing for Rebecca to turn the computer over to the billionaire.

While Xanatos was accepting the computer from Rebecca, Malibu bounded over to the German gargoyle with his beak open in a wide grin. "Heinrich! Good to see you again!" After giving the German gargoyle an enthusiastic hug (which Heinrich uncomfortably accepted), Malibu turned to Talon and said eagerly,"Can I be friends with him now?"

Claw, standing nearby, gave a wry tigerish grin and signed something to Talon; Elisa didn't know enough sign language to make it out, but Talon rolled his eyes as he groaned, "I know, I know! Yes, Malibu, you and Heinrich can be friends…"

Xanatos helped get Anne, Owen and the CPU into the helicopter, and Cecelia declared she would go with them, to give Anne and Owen better medical care with the facilities available at the castle. She urged Cassius, who'd taken a bullet through his left wing, to come back to the castle as well for treatment, but the elder shook his head. "The bandaging Lucretia already did will hold me till sunrise. You just worry about those poor humans, Cecelia. Me, I'm gonna go hunting a _loup-garou_! Ain't never had a chance to do _that_ before..."

To his credit, the pilot had never blinked an eye at the gargoyles surrounding the helicopter, or at the one that climbed inside with Anne and Owen. When Xanatos gave the order to go, the pilot gave them all a silent nod of acknowledgment as he started the rotors up again. Within moments, the helicopter was in the air and heading off.

Heading off, but instead of straight north as Elisa as expected, they headed north-northeast; not on a direct course for the castle. Elisa stared after the helicopter, then said slowly, "He's going to have the pilot land that thing right in front of the 23rd Precinct, isn't he?"

"Yeah, probably," Brooklyn said with a grin.

"The captain's going to pitch a fit," as she shook her head. "Well, at least my Fairlane should be out of the landing zone… All right, everybody, let's find ourselves a Were-Fox! And stop her without hurting her, if we can. Guys, what have you told everyone about her?" she asked Brooklyn, Broadway and Lexington; the only gargoyles present to have ever seen the Were-Fox.

"Only what little we know from that encounter two Halloweens ago," Brooklyn said. "When she's Were-Fox, she's got fangs and red fur, and stands as tall as Goliath… and nearly as strong and tough as him; able to go one-on-one with him and damn near come out even."

"She can go on two legs or four, and climb right up walls like we can," Broadway chimed in. Looking worried as he added, "She's constantly hungry, and apt to go for any source of meat… maybe even including us."

"And it doesn't do any good to hit her with tranquilizer darts; her metabolism's too hyped up for them to work," Lexington said. "A while back I found a computer file with the security footage of the last time she turned into the Were-Fox, and when Xanatos shot her with a tranq dart, all it did was make her angry."

"But she's not invulnerable; if you hit her hard enough, she's at least stunned for a few moments. She can also be stunned by a hefty jolt of electricity," Brooklyn finished.

Talon held up his hands, and they began crackling and faintly glowing. Claw did likewise, and Heinrich stared at them goggle-eyed as Talon said, "Got your electricity right here. The two of us together should be able to knock out a small herd of elephants."

"All right, then. We lure or corner her somewhere away from civilians, stun her unconscious, then get the Eye of Odin off her again… what'd she do, summon it from Avalon somehow?" Elisa asked.

"No magical amulet this time," Lexington said with a shake of his head. "While everyone else was searching for Thailog, Anne told me; Fox did this to herself, with the magic she inherited from her mother. It was the only way they could come up with to break out of their cell."

Elisa sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Wonderful. Well, I can't blame her for doing it, given the situation they were in, but that makes our job even harder."

"Er… maybe not harder," Heinrich said, looking apologetic for the interruption. "When I first saw her, the bad gargoyle had beaten her hard with a light pole from street, and she was… ah, not awake… un-conscience?"

"Uncon_scious_," Lexington corrected him.

"_Ja_, unconscious… and human. She was human, and did not become werewolf—ah, Were-_Fox_ again until she awoke."

"So if we stun her unconscious, she'll revert to human? Then we just have to _keep_ her unconscious, until Puck can wiggle his nose or whatever and make her permanently human again," Elisa said with relief. "Derek, can we borrow the Labyrinth sentries' tranquilizer guns? We knock or stun her unconscious, shoot her with a standard tranq dart as soon as she turns human, then deliver her to the castle; they have the facilities there to keep her under for days if they have to!"

"I'll go get a couple of tranq guns, and call you once we're back up to street level and these will work again," Talon said, gesturing with the radio that had just been handed to him by Adam.

Brooklyn said with a grim look, "So now we just have to find her… before she finds _prey_."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Back at the 23rd Precinct, Matt and the rookies had decided the prudent thing to do was to stay up in the former library with the kids until after Johansson came back with the baby stuff. That gave them more time to figure out what the heck they were going to say to their fellow cops; how they were going to explain going up there with Elisa and coming back down with two children in their arms.

"Maybe we could just tell them the truth? That a good-guy gargoyle saved them and brought them to us? Frankly, the gargoyles could use some good PR," James Carter pointed out, while resting Alexander against his shoulder and soothingly rubbing the infant's back.

"That a gargoyle saved them, yeah; I'm all for that," Matt agreed, while gently stroking the hair of a tuckered-out and sleeping Bethany in his lap. "And I have no problem with taking the heat for letting Heinrich go after bringing the kids in; we'll say that as head of the GTF, I _ordered_ you and Elisa to let him go. And the captain won't give me more than a reprimand if I can convince her that this was strictly a one-time deal, due to the gargoyle having saved the kids. She's got to know that the P.I.T. and the press would give the NYPD all kinds of grief, if they found out we'd locked up a gargoyle after he'd saved the lives of two children! But there's a big hole in that story…"

John Davis cocked his head, considering, then shrugged. "What hole, sir?"

"An explanation as for why Heinrich brought them _here_, to this particular precinct, after rescuing them," Matt said. "Elisa and I have been hiding our connection to the gargoyles for years now, and if Internal Affairs found out that two—no, _all_ _four_—members of the Gargoyles Task Force had been consorting with the very creatures we're supposed to be investigating, they'd be on us like fleas on a dog. Some folks might even lose their badges; Elisa is barely hanging onto hers as it is, after disappearing for most of a year."

"Say, did the gargoyles have something to do with that?" Davis asked curiously.

"Yes, they did, and no, I'm not going to go into that right now; it's a helluva long story. Right now, we need to find some way to explain what happened tonight. Any ideas?"

"How about… we say Heinrich is psychic?" Davis suggested. "Everyone knows that you already know Bethany, here, from when she and her mother visited the precinct on Thanksgiving with the turkey and pies for everyone; she even called you Daddy once, didn't she? So we'll say that when Heinrich rescued her, Bethany started crying for Daddy; the gargoyle picked up an image of you in her mind, remembered you from back when he lived above the precinct—he saw cops coming and going all the time, and we just never looked up at the right time to see him—so he brought her to you, or as close as he could get without being shot at."

"Oh, come on. Mind-reading gargoyles?" Matt rolled his eyes. "Somebody around here has been reading too many superhero comics."

"No, this could work! People would buy it!" Davis insisted. "People don't really know much of anything about gargoyles, and what little they do know is pretty fantastic; I mean, what other creatures _turn to stone_ during the day? Compared to _that_, mind-reading sounds almost normal."

"Good point," Matt admitted. "But we still have to come up with something more plausible, because if word gets out that a gargoyle saved the day, the P.I.T. will be all over it. And if we say the gargoyles are mind-readers, then they'll be asking the local clan members who come to the meetings to start doing mind-reading and other psychic tricks for them."

"So, we think of something else. We say that Bethany had something on her that gave Heinrich the idea of bringing her here to you… something with your name and the precinct address," Carter suggested. "Got anything like that on your key ring, maybe?"

Careful not to disturb the sleeping child on his lap, Matt fished out his key ring and looked it over. It had been so long since he'd put it on there that he hadn't thought about it in years, but in between the keys to his apartment and his car keys was an old cloisonné smiley-face key fob; a girlfriend of his in college had given it to him for a keepsake during his sophomore year. And the back of the key fob was engraved with his name, _Matthew J Bluestone_.

"This could work; it's got my name, anyway," Matt said. "And so long as we don't let anyone get too close a look at it, we can tell them it also says 'if found, return to NYPD, 23rd Precinct.' But how and why would Bethany be wearing something from a key ring?"

But Carter was already reaching up with his free hand to dig under the collar of his shirt, and fishing inside to pull out a necklace of tiny steel balls interlocking, with a pair of dog tags dangling from the chain. "Here, take the tags off and put that key-dealie on, and now it's a pendant," he said as he pulled the chain up and over his head, and handed it to Matt. "We tell them that Bethany was playing with your keys once, because kids do that sort of thing, and she liked the smiley-face so much that you gave it to her as a pendant. Just in fun, but it turned out to be a life-saver, because when Heinrich read it he knew just where to go… But I want the chain back when this is all over; these were my father's tags."

Matt held the neck chain almost reverently. "You'll get it back, I promise."

And barely ten seconds after Matt had taken the dog tags off the chain, put his key fob on and gently slipped the necklace over Bethany's head, Johansson popped the trap door open and came up with a bag containing the baby stuff they'd sent him for. "And I called Xanatos Enterprises with the news, and talked to the big man himself," Johansson told them with a smug smile. "He said he'll be right over to pick up his boy, and the nanny's girl too."

"Great; now let's get this kid fed, changed and happy before he gets here. And since you're the only guy here with any experience in fatherhood, guess who just got elected daddy pro tem?" Matt told Johansson cheerfully.

Johansson took it like a good sport, and while Alex was lying back on a jacket, hungrily sucking on the baby bottle and letting Johansson change his diaper, the cop looked around and asked, "Where'd Detective Maza go?"

"You must have just missed her as you were coming back; right after the gargoyle left, she left to go get dinner," Matt improvised. "Actually, I think she just wanted to be away from the precinct when Mr. Xanatos comes for his kid. She's been suspicious of him ever since her brother disappeared while in his employ, and she probably wasn't looking forward to seeing him so happy to get his son back, when she still doesn't have her brother back."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Maza sure can hold a grudge, huh? Oooch, this poor kid's got one helluva case of diaper rash. Good thing I got that rash cream too… Funny thing, though; why did the gargoyle bring the kids here?" Johansson asked while carefully wiping dried crap off the baby's tender heinie. "I mean, if I was a gargoyle looking for a friendly cop to help get some kids home to their parents, I'd go find a cruiser on patrol or on their coffee break, not go flying right into the headquarters of the Gargoyles Task Force."

Knowing that Johansson was one of the four biggest gossips in the precinct, Matt told him the story he and the others had just concocted, and even held up the necklace little Bethany was now wearing, for a split-second too brief for close inspection. "Honestly, I hardly thought about that silly smiley-face after I gave it to her, but now that it's brought her here safe and sound…"

"It's enough to make a man believe in the Almighty again," Johansson said as he finished diapering Alexander, then cocked his head and listened. "Do you guys hear a helicopter?"

"Sure do… and it's getting pretty loud," Matt frowned. "Like it's going to—aw, _no_! Did you say that Xanatos said he'd _**be**__**right over**_**?**"

Grabbing the children, they rushed down the ladder and into the main precinct just in time to see the helicopter landing right in the middle of the street outside, despite all the cars screeching to a halt and all the shouting cops spilling out of the stationhouse and surrounding it, some with their weapons drawn.

And that smug, too-cool bastard Xanatos just opened the helicopter door, waved jauntily to all the cops surrounding him and asked if his son was ready for pickup, like he did this every day for child care. Matt wanted to slug him, even while admiring the man's sheer nerve.

And then a feminine, familiar face appeared in the doorway after Xanatos stepped out, and Matt forgot all about the billionaire. "_Anne_!" He ran up to the helicopter with Bethany in his arms, and pulled her out with one arm to hug her and Bethany together. "Thank God you're safe; I've been half out of my mind ever since I heard…"

Sobbing too hard for words, Anne hugged him and her little girl back just as hard, until Bethany started squirming and complaining that she couldn't breathe.

Matt eased up on the hug, but held onto them both until he felt a tap on his shoulder. Xanatos stood there with his son held tightly to his own chest, and there were what looked like traces of tears on his cheeks. The billionaire said with a lightness he obviously didn't feel, "Sorry to break up a touching moment, but this night isn't over yet. And the children really should be in their own beds, back in the castle." Leaning closer, he hissed to Matt, "And I need you up there with them, guarding them. _Please_; I've still got to find Fox, Owen can barely stand right now, you know firearms, and you can be trusted with access to the armory. And after what's happened in the last two days, I don't know who else I can trust."

Matt nodded curtly before turning and looking for Captain Chavez, standing on the curb. He shouted over the noise of the still-spinning rotors, "Captain, I'm taking personal time! _Right Now!_"

"I clocked you off two minutes ago," she shouted back. "And tomorrow night, I expect _**a full report**_!"

He spared just a moment to hope fervently that Davis and Carter would not only keep their stories straight to back up the report he'd write later, but clue in Elisa on the tale that had been concocted if they saw her before he did. Then he focused on helping Anne—her leg had been bandaged and she was limping; had she been shot?!—and Bethany into the helicopter and climbed in after them; moments later they were rising into the air.

The helicopter had only four seats, all of them occupied by the pilot, Xanatos, Anne and Owen Burnett. (Owen looked like he'd been dragged through hell by his heels; what had Thailog done to them?!?) Anne held Bethany tightly on her lap while Matt ran the seatbelt over them both, and Xanatos did the same with his son. Matt squeezed between the back seats to the small cargo space behind them, figuring he could just sit on whatever was piled up underneath the brown blanket he saw… until the brown blanket moved and became a gargoyle's unfurled wings, swiftly refurling as a brown female gargoyle sat up and looked at him. "How are the children; any visible injuries? Normal temperatures and color in their cheeks?" she asked, craning her neck to look past him while he tried to remember who she was.

"Bethany seems okay, but Alexander's got to be starving and probably dehydrated by now, and I don't even want to think about his diaper rash," Anne said worriedly.

He's got a bottle's worth of baby formula inside him now, and his poor heinie was treated with ointment by a police officer at the precinct," Matt informed them both. "He should be fine after a good night's sleep… Celia, right?" as he squeezed in to crouch down beside the gargoyle.

"_Ce_celia; medic for the New Orleans Clan," she corrected him with a forgiving smile. "It's all right, I understand you've had a lot on your mind lately."

Matt nodded ruefully at her, then faced forward in time to see Owen reach slowly over to Anne's seat, and rest his hand on Bethany's hair for a few moments. Then Owen leaned forward, reaching his hand out towards Alexander in Xanatos' seat… but slumped forward unconscious before reaching them, his hand dangling down to the floor.

"Owen!" Anne exclaimed worriedly, and Matt started to get up, but Cecelia was already shouldering past him to quickly set Owen back in his seat and grasp him by the wrist, being careful not to pierce his flesh with her talons. She put the back of her other hand against his forehead, closed her eyes while apparently counting his pulse for a few moments, then reported, "Pulse seems steady right now, and he's not running a temperature. Probably just unconscious due to sheer exhaustion. But I'll want to hook him up to an EKG as soon as possible, and keep him monitored for the rest of the night. All those electrical shocks he was given could have aftereffects on his cardiac rhythm."

"Electrical shocks? …Was he _tortured_?!?" Xanatos twisted in his seat to stare back at his aide.

"Yes, sir; he told me about it while we were on the rooftop. But maybe we can talk about that later?" Anne said with a worried glance… at the pilot, Matt noticed. A pilot who evidently could be trusted about the gargoyles, or he wouldn't be calmly flying back to the castle with one in the cargo space. What secret had Owen been tortured to get information about, that the pilot couldn't be trusted with? Matt wondered… and then he remembered the Xanatos family's other secret, and his gut went ice-cold.

A cold grim feeling that settled even further in his guts, as Anne told him and Xanatos just how they'd been kidnapped right out of their limousine. There was no way Thailog could have accomplished that particular stunt without help from someone inside Xanatos Enterprises...

Matt's gun and shoulder holster were still hanging off the back of his desk chair in the precinct, so he scrounged around in the helicopter's emergency kit until he found the signal flare gun and armed it. When they landed on the helipad of the Aerie Building, he insisted on being the first out the door, with flare gun held ready; anyone who might think it a silly weapon had never thought about how much force it took to fire a flare high into the air, burning brightly all the way. If Thailog had escaped the other gargoyles and beaten them to the castle, Matt was going to turn that bastard into perforated gargoyle flambé.

But there was no sign of Thailog on the helipad; the only gargoyle waiting to meet them was Martha, the gray-skinned female that Matt had also met briefly before dawn. She helped Cecelia get Owen and Anne up to the castle, while Matt carried Bethany and Xanatos carried Alexander.

Anne and Owen were immediately taken to the infirmary, and Matt asked Martha to mind the children in the infirmary's waiting room for a few minutes. Cecelia worked on her patients, and Martha minded the children as they slept on a pile of infirmary blankets that had been tossed onto the floor and hastily arranged into a nest of sorts. Meanwhile, Matt and Xanatos raided the nearest armory to outfit the policeman with both a laser pistol and a Glock 9mm, and a couple of stun grenades.

When Matt and Xanatos returned to the infirmary, Martha carefully picked up the still-sleeping children to take them to the nursery. But Matt told her, "Not yet; we keep them in the infirmary too until the adults are ready to leave. Xanatos, do you have any cots or rollaway beds that can be brought into the nursery later? We need to keep everyone together for security."

As he took his son from Martha's arms, Xanatos ruefully admitted that the castle had no cots or rollaway beds. But Martha said with a slight smile, "Not a problem; I noticed some guest bedrooms earlier with beds in them. Give me a few minutes, and I can carry the beds into the nursery and rearrange the furniture so they'll all fit."

"Good idea," Xanatos said distractedly as he cuddled Alexander, stroking the baby's fine ginger hair over and over; the man just could not get enough physical contact with his son. (Which Matt understood quite well, as he fought the urge to set aside all his weapons and pick up Bethany again.) "Do you need any help with lifting…" then he looked up, and Matt decided that Xanatos had just remembered who he was talking to and what species she belonged to. The billionaire half-smiled as he said, "Ah, right; never mind."

Martha carefully set Bethany back down on the blankets, then hurried away to rearrange furniture, her toe-talons clicking on the aged stone floor tiles as she strode down the hallway. Xanatos gave his son one last gentle kiss on his baby-fine hair, murmuring something to the sleeping child; Matt thought it sounded like "…get her back, I promise." Then he reluctantly set Alexander down next to Bethany. And as he straightened up, they heard footsteps drawing near; footsteps that weren't being made by gargoyle talons, and were coming down another hallway.

Xanatos turned to stare in the direction the footsteps were coming from, then reached a hand out towards Matt without looking at him. "Gun," he snapped. With his left hand, Matt slapped the laser pistol into the billionaire's grip; he preferred the more conventional Glock, which he already had out and ready in his right. Then he filled his left hand again, with a stun grenade.

Then the intruders came into view, and Matt lowered his gun and breathed a sigh of relief. They were Agents Hovander and Jasper, of the FBI team that had been brought in to help find the kidnap victims.

Jasper said as soon as he saw them, "Mr. Xanatos, we may have a possible lead, but we need to—what's going on here?" as he stopped short at the sight of their guns, his hand lifting up and across towards his shoulder holster, and Hovander silently doing the same. Then he looked past the two men, at the nest of blankets on the floor and the two children curled up atop the nest. "Are… are those the two--"

"The two children, yes," Matt told them with satisfaction, and a certain vindictive glee at their astounded faces. "And Anne Marsden and Owen Burnett have been found and brought back as well. And before you ask how, my partner and I just did like you suggested… _we_ _stuck with the gargoyles_."

"Well, that's good news! We'll need to interview the adults and the little girl, to learn more about their kidnappers, get possible leads on the whereabouts of Mrs. Xanatos and…" as Jasper started forward, then stopped. And said softly but firmly, "Mr. Xanatos, you can put that gun down now. Really."

"I could, but I'm not going to," Xanatos said flatly, as Matt looked over at him, startled to realize his gun was still drawn and ready to fire. "Instead, I suggest you gentlemen leave immediately. And immediately means _right now_; you can come back for your equipment later."

Hovander and Jasper frowned, and neither of them moved towards the elevator. Jasper said, "Mr. Xanatos, may I remind you that we're here to help you? Not to mention _federal agents_?"

"Right this minute, you could be the President and the Queen of England, and I'd still be asking you to leave," Xanatos said coldly. "We've learned just enough about the kidnapping to know it was done with _inside help_. The kidnapper got to someone I thought I could trust, so until I know more, I suspect _**everybody.**_ That includes you and your superiors; _**no one**_ is getting anywhere near my son, my aide, or our nanny and her daughter. Or my wife, after we find her."

"Mr. Xanatos, are these gentlemen bothering you?" Martha said ominously, as she came back down the hall and into the FBI agents' view.

Both agents gave a start when they saw Martha, their hands twitching even closer to their guns. Matt realized then that he'd been around gargoyles too long. He'd taken in the modified housedress Martha was wearing, the kindly expression she usually had on her face and her anxious-to-help manner, and in his head categorized her as _nice lady_. He'd never once thought that anyone would look at Martha and see _monster_.

"Yes, Martha, these gentlemen are bothering me," Xanatos informed her.

Well, then; there's really only one other question that needs answering," Martha said as she took another step closer… her wings flaring, her talons flexing, and her fangs showing as she finished, "Are they leaving immediately… or are they _staying for__** dinner?!**_"

_Nice lady with fangs_, Matt mentally amended.

Being seasoned FBI agents, the two men did not run, and they did not start firing in a panic. But after a quick glance at each other, assessing their chances and options, they did announce that they would be leaving soon, and tell their agents in the field to simply report back to the local headquarters.

"Then allow me to escort you to the elevator," Martha said sweetly, with a smile that still showed her fangs.

"We know the way, thanks," Jasper said hurriedly. And they left at a quick walk, with Martha shadowing them from a few paces behind.

She came back shortly to report, "They're gone now. And good riddance to them, too; those crude, boorish, _bigoted_…"

"I take it you overheard something unpleasant while monitoring their conversations?" Xanatos asked her as he handed the laser pistol back to Matt.

"You could say that, yes," Martha said with a look of disgusted anger. "What they speculated about you and your family, and what they think about gargoyles… It's a good thing for them that they didn't stay for dinner; I'd have either burned, served cold or added super-hot sauce to everything on their plates."

Xanatos chuckled. "Never get a _cook_ angry at you."

Which reminded Matt of something he'd already heard about Martha, but had put out of his mind with everything else that had happened recently. "That's right, you're Martha Dubois, writer of the _Gumshoe Gumbo_ mystery series! Broadway called and told me a few weeks ago. I've really enjoyed your books!"

Before leaving again to rearrange the nursery and fit two adult beds inside, Martha smiled and gave a small chuckle. "Meeting my fans at last…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Xanatos left Matt to guard the children and the adults still in the infirmary, while he went to get his power armor. On the way, he pulled out his cell phone and punched in a series of numbers. For a phone number that he'd never called in his life before yesterday, but had now learned by heart. David Xanatos and his father-in-law might disagree on a lot of things, but they both loved Alexander and Fox.

The phone answered on the second ring, and Preston Vogel answered. "Vogel, wake up your boss; I've got good news and bad news, and we still need his help," David told him.

Halcyon Renard was on the line seconds later, demanding, "What's happened? Have they been found?"

"All but one. Alexander's back safe at home and so are Owen, Anne and little Bethany, but Fox is still missing. She's free of her kidnapper, but still in danger and we've got to find her fast. You'll need to recalibrate your cybots' programs for new recognition parameters; can you do that remotely, without recalling them?"

"I can; Vogel, bring me that laptop," David heard Renard say. A few seconds later his father-in-law asked, "What's changed about Janine's appearance? Did the kidnappers cut and dye her hair, or cover her tattoo?"

"No, the tattoo's still visible… but the face around it has changed drastically. Did Fox ever tell you about the time she became a were-fox?"

"A _**what**__?!_"

David sighed; he'd been expecting that reaction. Fox didn't talk about that time if she could help it, even to him. "It'd take too long to explain, Halcyon. Just have your cybots start looking for a creature that looks like a werewolf, but with fox-red fur and Fox's blue tattoo over her right eye. And give them a new search pattern; she was held captive in a warehouse on the southeastern docks, so she's probably heading north from there, and looking for meat. I'm going out in my power armor to help the gargoyles look for her and bring her in. If your cybots find her first, call me on this frequency…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Matt kept turning to check every minute or so, but Bethany and Alexander stayed sound asleep, so Matt was able to keep most of his attention on the hallways, alert for intruders. But as guard duty is inherently boring when there are no signs of intruders, his mind began wandering, to the subject of the Were-Fox.

He remembered the month that the Were-Fox had been active, though no one had called him –her, in retrospect, but since no breasts had been showing everyone had assumed it was male—a were-fox at the time. Instead, the newspapers and the police had called him the Were-Thief. They'd been sure at first that it was just someone committing B&E's and robberies while wearing a werewolf costume, bought at one of the costume stores that always appeared in shopping malls in the month before Halloween.

But after no less than three eye-witnesses to one grocery store robbery had sworn they'd seen the creature run away on all fours, the police had started to wonder. And when Detective Elisa Maza had come face-to-face with the creature in a convenience store, and stated in her report that not even the best professional in Hollywood could make the head she'd seen, with the slavering jaws that opened to reveal a long red tongue and sharp teeth that were all too real… the police had started to worry. And while all the robberies had all been of food from grocery and convenience stores, all committed without any people being hurt, when someone from Animal Control had pointed out that there'd also been a sharp increase in the number of cats and dogs that had been reported missing, the police had become _very_ worried. In the wild, creatures that attacked small prey like cats and dogs sometimes also went after small children…

But after Halloween and one last report of the Were-Thief breaking up a block party, there had been no more sightings. After another couple of months of no activity or new clues, the robbery cases were set aside while the police moved on to more recent and urgent matters. Later, even after he'd learned of the gargoyles and Elisa had promised to keep no more secrets from him, Elisa hadn't told Matt about the true identity of the Were-Thief… but that was probably because he just hadn't thought to ask if she knew.

Now the Were-Thief—the Were-Fox, that is—was back, and roaming the streets. But that was all he knew; nothing about how or why Fox had transformed, or whether she was responsible for all the missing pets as well as the grocery robberies. When all this was over, he had a lot of questions in need of answers…

Martha returned to Matt's post at the infirmary before Xanatos did, with baby blankets from the nursery and a pair of stuffed animals. After giving each plush animal a quick sniff, probably matching scents with owners, she put the batwinged teddy bear down next to Alexander and the Piglet doll next to Bethany. Then she covered them with the blankets, murmuring, "The poor dears… Mr. Bluestone, can I get you anything?" as she straightened up.

"Call me Matt, please. And I could use some coffee; I didn't get much sleep today," Matt admitted.

"It's not hard to understand why, but everything's going to turn out all right now," Martha said comfortingly, though she cast a worried glance at the infirmary door as she said it. "Cream and sugar, or straight black?"

Just then Xanatos came back, wearing his winged power armor, the Goliath-resembling helmet tucked under his arm. He handed Matt a remote control and a radio headset, saying, "After I leave, the castle's defenses will be on full auto; _**anything**_ that approaches within 200 yards will be given one warning shot, then shot down if they get any closer. Push the green button on the remote to disable the defenses, but only after either I or Brooklyn calls in to give the all-clear signal; it's going to be 'Alexander loves applesauce.' Got it?"

"Got it," Matt said as he donned the headset and accepted the remote control. "Good luck finding your wife and bringing her back."

"_Finding _her shouldn't be hard, with all the gargoyles and Renard's cybots looking too," Xanatos said grimly as he donned his helmet. But he made no such assurances about bringing her back home.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_**To be continued in Part 9: Fox Hunting**_


	9. Fox Hunting

**10.9: Fox Hunting**

This was the most bizarre night in Heinrich's entire life. So bizarre, it made most of the fantastic adventures he'd written about 'Klein-Johannes' seem mundane in comparison. First, he'd come across another of his kind who'd turned out to be the worst sort of villain; then he'd met a woman who turned into a _werewolf_! And then more gargoyles—friendly gargoyles, who called him a hero! Some of these new gargoyles looked like cats or tigers or horses or bulls, and three of them had feathered wings, and two of them had _electrical powers_! And now he was helping them all hunt down that werewolf! And there'd been some talk of magic spells, talking as if magic was _real_…

After all this, he wouldn't be surprised if the next thing to happen were for a dragon to appear in the sky next to him, and invite him to dinner. And if it was a big purple dragon with green eyes, like the one he'd written about in _Johannes Und Der Drache_, then that would be proof that he had either gone completely insane from staying in America too long, or was having the weirdest dream ever.

And if all this turned out to be a dream, then he was never, ever going to eat another of those microwaved "Hot-Pocket" snacks that Father Sullivan had given him. Especially not just before sunrise.

But in the meantime, he had to assume this was real and act accordingly. He had been partnered with three other gargoyles; Malibu, and two more named Broadway and Etienne. Broadway had a small two-way radio of some sort, which he was using to keep in contact with the other gargoyle teams as they methodically went through Manhattan neighborhood by neighborhood, searching for the werewolf—no, the were-_fox_. Well, whatever beast she was related to, he wasn't looking forward to facing those claws and fangs again. But better that he and the other gargoyles deal with the were-fox than some poor defenseless human, who couldn't glide out of reach of her claws.

Broadway's radio squawked for attention before Brooklyn's voice came out of it, announcing, "Xanatos says the kids, Anne and Owen are all safe at the castle now, and he's coming out in his power armor to help us search."

"Tell him to bring along a thick blanket," Broadway said immediately into the radio. "I've been looking, but I don't see any on clotheslines that we could borrow."

"What? _Why_ would we want a thick blanket?" It wasn't hard for Heinrich to imagine the weird look that Brooklyn must have been giving his radio just then.

"For Fox, once she's unconscious," Broadway responded. "Her clothes don't transform with her, right? Elisa had to give her the skirt off her Belle costume last time she was turned back to human. And it's a lot colder tonight than it was that Halloween; we'll need to wrap her in something warm so she doesn't freeze to death before we can get her back to the castle."

"Good point. Okay, I'll pass that along," Brooklyn said before the radio went silent again.

"Now, that's right thoughtful of you," Etienne told Broadway with a grin.

Broadway shrugged, looking mildly embarrassed. "Well, Fox is clan now, or nearly is anyway. When Hudson and Goliath get back from Avalon, they really should have a formal clan ceremony for the whole family. Hey, what's that down there, in that open Dumpster?"

They looked, but it turned out to be just an exceptionally large dog rooting in the garbage for food. As they glided past, Etienne spoke up again. " 'Ey, Broadway, I been wondering something. That Renard, the guy that's Fox's father; you ever seen his feet without shoes on?"

Now Broadway gave Etienne a strange look. "The guy's in a wheelchair, and his legs were covered the one time I saw him at Goliath and Elisa's wedding, so I've never seen his feet at all. Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's kinda _fou_, but… hell, this whole business has been crazy, so maybe it fits. You know there's more shape-changers than werewolves, right? The wolves, they get the most attention because they get organized into packs and even more dangerous, but they ain't the only folks that go from human-like to animal-like."

Broadway nodded. "I've never seen any myself, but the old clan had a rookery tale about a were-bear. And a story about the king stag of an elk herd that could turn into a human when it suited him, though I don't think he was a _were_ type of changer."

"Ayuh, and there's other types too. Like were-foxes, for instance. And there's an old rookery tale in my clan about how you can recognize a child of _were_ blood by the feet; even if the hands have five fingers, the feet only have four toes."

"And you think… Mr. Renard has _were_ blood in him?"

"Renard means Fox in French, _mon ami_. And here's this girl with the last name of Renard who can change herself into a giant fox; I'm thinking that's more than coincidence, an' maybe she's getting that ability from her father's side of the family, not her mother's."

Broadway shook his head. "But according to your stories, if that were true, Fox would have four toes on each foot instead of five. And I've seen her feet with sandals on; she's got the same number of toes on each foot that all humans do."

"So maybe the old story about the feet was wrong, or maybe it's been so many generations since that Renard line was started by a were-fox marrying a human that the blood's diluted enough for five toes. Here's another question for you: does Fox ever wear silver jewelry?"

That gave Broadway pause. "Um… now that you mention it, no she doesn't. She doesn't really wear jewelry that often, but whenever I do see her wearing any, it's always gold. But that could just be a personal preference, and she's certainly rich enough to have everything made in gold."

"Yeah, could just be a preference… could be. Anyway, ain't no sign of her on this block."

"And we haven't gotten word of a sighting from anyone else, either. And it's been over an hour from the time Anne said they broke out… just how far has she run in the last hour, looking for food?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

An apartment window in Tribeca opened, and a man from inside the third-floor apartment stepped out onto the fire escape. Then he turned around and deliberately broke the window with the butt of his handgun, and pushed shards of glass inwards until he'd made a hole big enough for someone to fit through.

It's taking care of the details that can make or break any plan, but Oscar Jansen was always good at remembering details. Details like the window; creating a clear sign of forced entry into the apartment, so the police would focus on that instead of wondering whether the killer had a key to the front door. Details like the handful of jewelry that was stuffed into his pocket; creating the illusion that the killer's main purpose had been to rob the place, instead of getting out of alimony and child support payments.

Details like the silencer on his gun; it had cost extra to purchase the silencer from that street dealer, but there'd been no noise to alert the neighbors as he'd walked in and shot the bitch and the two brats in their beds. And details like the movie ticket in his other pocket, from a show at the theater in Albany that should have ended only a few minutes ago. He'd bought the ticket and gone in twenty minutes before the movie was due to start, then just walked right out again as part of the crowd leaving from the previous showing. He'd paid cash to see the movie two nights ago and sat through that entire showing, so if anyone asked him about the movie he'd be able to tell them about the plot and characters; another important detail.

He'd make only one detour on the drive back to Albany, to the docks to dispose of both the handgun and the jewelry. It was tempting to pawn the jewelry and get back some of the money he'd spent on the ungrateful bitch who'd divorced him, but the police kept a lookout for stolen stuff appearing in pawn shops, and pawn shops kept records of who sold stuff to them. No, better to just dump it all, before going back to take care of the final detail; withdrawing some money from an ATM and keeping the time-stamped receipt. Between the ATM receipt and the movie ticket, he'd have proof that he'd been in Albany all night and couldn't possibly have had time to drive to Manhattan and back, so the police would have to look elsewhere for the killer.

With his mind on the final details, Oscar descended the fire escape. Then he paused just before jumping to the ground, at the sounds that were emanating from the open dumpster a few yards further down the alley. Something was shoving around the trash in there… just a dog, probably; nothing to worry about.

But on the other hand, it might be some bum who'd been scrounging for food; someone who had seen him come out of the apartment and _then_ break the window, and was now trying to hide from him under the garbage. Besides, he had to walk past that dumpster to get to where he'd parked his car a block away. Just in case he had to silence a witness, he kept his gun out and cocked as he walked up to the dumpster and peered in…

Just as a big furry _**monster**_ lifted its head with a charred and half-eaten roast in its jaws, and looked right back at him.

A startled man with a gun in his hand is apt to pull the trigger, and Oscar was no exception to the rule. But since he'd fired on impulse, instead of the deliberate targeting he'd done for the killing shots fired earlier, his aim was off. Instead of blowing its head off, he only hit it in the shoulder.

He had just enough time to remember that wounded beasts are the most dangerous, and to scream.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

She licked at the blood oozing from the wound in her shoulder. It hurt, very much… but the pain was already beginning to fade, even as the wound stopped bleeding.

Then she looked at the human lying under her paws. He was dead. She had killed him. The human had hurt her, she had acted instinctively… but the Alpha would be angry with her, for disobeying the rule about humans. The Alpha would punish her.

But the Alpha was not here. And she was still so _hungry_…

She dragged the body into the metal box that she'd found the other food in.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Chris Carson had bought a police scanner six weeks ago, at an exorbitant price but it had already paid for itself in his work. He'd already been the first reporter on the scene for three different crimes, and his editor had praised him for the photos he'd taken as well as the reports from witnesses.

And after tonight's business, he thought he'd be justified in asking for a raise. He'd already been the first reporter on the scene of a gang hangout that had been raided by the gargoyles; he'd taken photos of a pile of handguns that had been crushed or mangled by beings with incredible strength, and of the five 'victims' of the raid being led away in handcuffs by the police.

Chatter on the scanner said that suspected gang hangouts were being raided all over town, but Chris couldn't be in six places at once, so he had to pick and choose which reports to follow up on and which to leave to other reporters. But it wasn't hard to decide between police dispatcher calls about another vigilante raid on a suspected gang hangout… and another home invasion report, like the many that had occurred the night before but with one damn big difference. This time, the homeowner reported that he had killed the gargoyles breaking in!

Chris had put the pedal to the metal, and arrived only a couple of minutes behind the police officers responding to the call. And before the police could stop him, he'd gotten a couple of good photos of the dead gargoyles—who weren't gargoyles at all! He was sure that the shot of a 'gargoyle' with its ski mask pulled off to reveal an ordinary human underneath, would be on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow.

The apartment's resident, Mitchell Starsky, was led away in handcuffs by the police, but not before Chris had gotten a couple of good quotes from the man about it all being self-defense, and used his new cell phone to call the story in to his editor. And after the bodies had been hauled off and the apartment door sealed with police crime scene tape, Chris went around to the back alley and climbed up the fire escape, to get more photos of the shattered window and the chalked outlines on the carpet. In his head, Chris was already envisioning the article headline, "Home Invasion Foiled, Gargoyles Hoax Revealed"… and the Pulitzer Prize sitting on his mantle.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

They'd been searching the city for nearly three hours, and so far the only sign they'd seen of Were-Fox activity had been a convenience store that had been broken into, with all the lunchmeat and eggs in the refrigerated section eaten. Adam's team had reported that by the scents left behind in the empty store, they'd missed the Were-Fox by only a few minutes. Elisa had been gliding in Adam's arms; she'd stayed behind to secure the scene until more cops and the store owner could show up, and think of a good cover story to tell them, while the gargoyles hurried on to find the Were-Fox. But they'd lost her trail after less than a block, and that had been nearly an hour ago… Brooklyn used his radio to check on the other teams. "Anyone see anything?"

Everyone reported back in the negative, except for Broadway. "Just a minute; Malibu said he thought he saw something, and we're checking it out…"

Two minutes later Broadway was back on the radio, his voice urgent. "Everyone, she's here in Central Park; she's trying to get into the petting zoo!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"_Back off!_" "_Go on, shoo!_" "_Get away from there!_" "_Leave those poor critters alone!_" Broadway and his team shouted as they took turns swooping down at the Were-Fox, driving it away from the petting zoo and the penned animals kept there. It had been a near thing, stopping her from getting into the zoo; she'd already climbed to the top of the fence and was poised to leap down inside when Malibu had swooped down on her with a roar, startling her into falling back to the ground on the outside.

Broadway had almost chewed Malibu out for acting without orders, but changed his mind when he saw the tactic had been effective. The Were-Fox didn't like the gargoyles swooping down on her, but backed away instead of trying to attack them. So they harried her away from the zoo, like pigeons chasing a cat away from their nest.

"Let's herd her towards Sheep Meadow!" Broadway told the others. And then he had to explain where that was to the rest of his team, none of whom had ever been there before. "Lots of wide open space there, and no humans will be here at this time of night; we can keep her there until everyone else arrives and we can gang up on her."

"What about using a stun grenade on her?" Etienne asked, brandishing the pouch of weapons they'd been using on the gang raids they'd been doing earlier. "Or one of my Tar Babies? With her blinded and deafened or her jaws and paws glued together, we could knock her out now instead of waiting for backup."

"Good idea! Okay, we'll use a stun grenade," Broadway decided. So everyone climbed the breezes up higher for a few moments, until they were a good sixty feet above the Were-Fox, who eyed them suspiciously but began moving towards the petting zoo again. Then Etienne dropped the stun grenade, while everyone looked away and covered their ears.

There was a tremendous _**BANG!**_ and flash of light that cast their silhouettes against the starry sky overhead, and as soon as the grenade had gone off, Broadway turned and dove down, knowing the others would follow his lead. The Were-Fox was sprawled on her side, just barely lifting and shaking her head. This would be easy now; just one or two good haymaker punches should knock her out! He swooped down, figuring to land right next to her—

And then the Were-Fox sprang to her feet, impossibly fast—

And he tried to dodge, to climb back up into the air, but he wasn't fast enough; his left wing wasn't—

And she caught him! Broadway screamed in pain as the Were-Fox sank her fangs into his wingtip, tearing the membrane as she dragged him down, throwing him to the hard earth.

Forget the pain, he had to get away! Broadway scrambled to all fours and surged forward, ignoring the agony of his wing being ripped by fangs as he tried to pull out of her grip. And then she let go, and he started to run—but she sprang on him again, sinking her fangs into the base of his tail! The agony radiating up his spine sent Broadway sprawling. He had time to think _Oh Dragon, I'm Dead--_

_**Whudd!**_

And the Were-Fox let go of her grip on his tail. Broadway jerked forward, looking back over his shoulder to see Heinrich stumbling off of the Were-Fox's back. The German gargoyle must have pulled that same drop-straight-down maneuver he'd used on Thailog, Broadway realized as Etienne and Malibu came swooping in to grab his arms, and lift him off the ground and away.

"Damn, you heavy, Broadway!" Etienne grunted as he and Malibu struggled to rise with Broadway between them. Broadway looked down, to see Heinrich at first limping on two legs away from the Were-Fox, then dropping to all fours; the German gargoyle must have hurt his foot when he'd slammed into the Were-Fox. But still, it had worked; their quarry was out cold…

…No, she wasn't. She was already lifting her head again, and staggering to her feet. And eyeing Heinrich, who was still on the ground!

"**Run**, Heinrich! Get into the sky, fast!" Broadway shouted, then looked over his shoulder at Etienne. "Leggo of me and go help him!"

And Etienne let go, then had to hurriedly grab him again because he immediately started falling. Malibu couldn't keep Broadway in the air by himself; the cloned gargoyle had never been trained in tandem gliding. And now Heinrich was running on all fours for the trees, but the Were-Fox was gaining on him; she was less than a length behind him, ready to spring—

And then Brooklyn and Isabel swooped in together and grabbed Heinrich by the wings, carrying him away. The Were-Fox snarled at the loss of her prey and leaped, but they managed to clear her claws by inches.

As the teams converged in the sky together, Brooklyn said angrily, "Dammit, you were supposed to wait for backup! I told you, _no _team engages the Were-Fox alone unless people's lives are in danger! Better that the petting zoo loses a sheep or a goat, than we lose one of the clan!"

"You're right; m'sorry," Broadway mumbled, his eyes downcast.

"How badly are you hurt? I see the wing; anything else? No broken bones on either of you?" Brooklyn asked Broadway and Heinrich.

"No broken bones; she got my tail, but the wing's definitely the worst," Broadway said. Heinrich said his right foot hurt, but he probably had just twisted the ankle instead of breaking any bones.

Brooklyn pointed off to the west as he ordered Etienne and Malibu, "You two take Broadway off to Belvedere Castle, then come back here; we don't have time right now to take our wounded back home. Heinrich, go with Broadway; we can't afford the chance of injuries slowing anyone down in combat."

Broadway glumly let Etienne and Malibu carry him away, while Heinrich glided after them. Some warrior he was now…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Brooklyn watched the wounded depart, then looked down at the Were-Fox, waiting to see which way she'd go next. If she went back towards the petting zoo, he'd have a hard decision to make; whether or not to let her take one of the zoo's penned animals for food. There'd be a public outcry, but with her huge appetite sated by a full meal in her belly, the Were-Fox might be easier to handle…

But instead of heading for the petting zoo, she was running on another course. Brooklyn, Isabel and Hollywood followed her from on high until the Were-Fox ran to the carousel.

"The equivalent of a thorny thicket; she's looking for cover from attacks from above," Isabel suggested to Brooklyn as the giant fox sprang onto the raised platform and disappeared among the painted ponies.

"That works for me, so long as she stays in there until Talon and Claw can get here," Brooklyn said. Which hopefully wouldn't be long; all the teams were converging on the park.

But the next one to arrive on the scene was Xanatos, in his power armor. And when Brooklyn told him where the Were-Fox had gone to, he slowly descended to land in front of the carousel.

"Xanatos, this ain't smart!" Brooklyn said worriedly, circling above the carousel. But Xanatos ignored him as he reached up and took his Goliath-resembling helmet off.

And then the billionaire spoke: "Fox… Honey, it's me, David. I'm David, and I need you to be Janine again. To be human again. I need you... and our son needs you. Our son, Alexander; remember this?" as he reached into a compartment built into the armor, and withdrew a bright yellow and lumpy scrap of knitted fabric. "You made this for him… it was going to be a blanket for our baby, but you couldn't quite get the hang of knitting and you stopped after just a few rows. Then your mother picked it up on one of her visits, and she turned the work you'd done into a cap for the baby. Alexander wore it for the first month after he was born; it has his scent on it," as he slowly stepped forward just far enough to lay the cap on the platform, then backed off. "Go on, take a sniff… and remember our son. He needs you, Fox. He needs you to be a human again, so you can be a mother to him… And I need you too. Please, Fox… Janine… please, be human again."

The Were-Fox stepped slowly out of the shadows, russet fur gleaming in the moonlight as the huge creature stooped to sniff the scrap of cloth. Everyone held their breaths as she sniffed, then as she lifted her head to look at David, standing there with his head uncovered and vulnerable. She looked, and she whined softly…

And then she ran.

"Shit!" "Dammit, she's on the move again!" the gargoyles cursed as they wheeled and went after the Were-Fox, who had leaped from the carousel and was now running flat-out through the park. Leaving behind her husband, who called out futilely "Fox, _no_! _**Please**_!" before donning his helmet again.

She ran, and they went after her… but now Fox wasn't running for prey; she was running scared. Running faster than anyone had ever seen her run before, and the gargoyles in the air could barely keep up with her; too fast for anyone to stop her from running to another form of cover. Down a slope and into a large drain culvert set at the bottom of a small hill; they saw her red bushy tail vanish from view into the shadows.

"Well, crap! What do we do now, follow her down into the tunnels?" Etienne asked.

Brooklyn shook his head in frustration. "Bad idea, without some long-distance weapons handy. We can't maneuver down there, our wings would be useless, and we'd be stuck in single file in the narrow tunnels; if she turned and sprang on us, she'd have the advantage. We'll have to wait for Talon and Claw to get here; their electrical powers are all we've got for long-distance weapons that might work on her. They should be here soon…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

She had made cover without being attacked again, and she paused inside the mouth of the tunnel, panting harshly. She was safe now…

Safe from those who wanted to make her weak and small again. Who wanted her to go back to being half-deaf again, with a nose that was useless. And she couldn't go back to that; she would never go back!

_**You will**_.

Startled, she turned and began to show her fangs… and then she cowered. The Alpha was there in the tunnel, on the other side of a metal grate.

She whined, but the Alpha would not be placated by her show of submission. He told her that she had done enough that night, and now it was time for her to rest…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

When Talon's team arrived in Central Park a few minutes later, Talon was horrified to hear that Were-Fox had gone into the tunnel. "For God's sake, there's innocent people living down there!"

Brooklyn gave him a startled look. "But the Labyrinth is miles away from here, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but we're not the only people who live below the streets; we've seen signs that other people live down here too, homeless folks who avoid the Labyrinth for some reason. Probably because they're scared of us mutates; lots of folks are at first. But they'll be helpless down there if the Were-Fox finds them! Hollywood, take this," as he unslung the tranquilizer rifle that had been his back, "and follow me!" and with that, Talon charged into the drain culvert.

Hollywood was right behind Talon, rifle at the ready, and the other gargoyles followed at his heels. So closely that they nearly ran right into him when he abruptly stopped; they just barely avoided piling into each other and him as he reached down to pick up…

Fox, in human form, totally nude and sleeping like a rock.

"What happened to her?" Brooklyn asked, scratching his mane as Talon carried her out of the culvert. "I mean, not that I'm not glad we didn't have to fight her and beat her unconscious, but… did she run headlong into that metal grate and knock herself out, or what?"

"Maybe she just… burned out, kinda," Lexington speculated. "Maybe without food, she just ran out of energy to keep going in her Were-Fox form, so her body switched back to human form because it burns fewer calories that way. And the last bit of energy used to change back to human just wore her out enough she fell unconscious. Maybe?"

Talon shrugged as he handed the sleeping Fox Xanatos over to her husband's arms. "Whatever; I'm just glad it's over."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

It didn't take long to collect their wounded and get everyone back to the castle. Cecelia had already finished with treating Anne and Owen, and she hurried to get Broadway and Heinrich into the clinic and treat their injuries. Martha came out onto the battlements to announce that she had prepared a good meal for everyone, and had been keeping it warm for them or the past hour. And while they all trooped down and inside, Martha handed Adam a pair of lists she'd written, with an apologetic smile. "This is a list of the things I'd like to have sent up here to me. And this is a list of recipes I'll need Amelie and Antoinette to copy for me."

"It'll be a poor Christmas feast this year, without your talents in the kitchen," Adam said dolefully to Martha. "After what Broadway said to me and Goliath back in New Orleans, I'd had hopes of eating your cooking and enjoying your sense of humor for a long time to come."

"Life is what happens while you're making other plans," Martha quoted with a smile. "But I'm sure Amelie and Antoinette can whip up a grand feast without me. They're probably already marinating the beef brisket and baking the _Bûche de Noel_."

Everyone ate with a much heartier appetite than the night before… except Brooklyn. Now that the crisis was over, he was busy second-guessing the entire campaign, and berating himself for being so quick to assume that the kidnapping had been done by a human enemy of the clan. "And Elisa was right; it was stupid to ever think the Quarrymen were behind the kidnapping! They've been trying to pass themselves off as saviors of humanity; being even _implicated_ in a kidnapping would completely wreck that image!"

"While I'm not disagreeing with you, I do think that if the kidnapping had succeeded in creating a wedge between you and Xanatos and driving you away from the castle for good, the Quarrymen would have applauded and even supported the kidnappers instead of condemning them. …If it hadn't been done by a gargoyle, that is. But one thing I've learned from living by both daylight and starlight, is that hate groups tend to be a lot better at hating their chosen enemies than at having compassion for innocents," Adam pointed out.

"Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that in assuming the Quarrymen were behind it, by going after them _in their homes_, we've just made all the lies they've been spouting about us look true in the public's eyes," Brooklyn growled. "There are few things more terrifying than having your home invaded, being attacked while you're asleep and helpless… By now probably even the P.I.T. founders think we're monsters! Goliath is going to shred my wings when he gets back from Avalon."

And the newspapers Brooklyn read after dinner, the evening editions from the day before, only confirmed his fears about how the public viewed the gargoyles now. "Yup. Shredded wings are in my future," he said glumly, staring at the screaming headlines.

"Before that happens, I'll make sure Goliath knows that any gargoyle no longer wanted in the Manhattan Clan is more than welcome in mine," Adam said firmly.

Broadway, who had just emerged from the clinic with his wings and tail stitched up, told Brooklyn that he was being too hard on himself. "Heck, the way Castaway ambushed you and Isabel last night pretty much had us all convinced he was involved in the kidnapping! And I'm sure Goliath will see it that way too, when he gets back. We'd had no reason to think Thailog was even _alive_, let alone he was behind the kidnapping--"

"But we should have! It's his M.O.; the bastard got his first twenty million dollars from Xanatos by pretending to have _himself_ kidnapped!" Brooklyn reminded them harshly.

"Yeah, hindsight is twenty-twenty, just like in the detective novels," Broadway said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You had to work with what little info we had at the start, and that information pointed to someone well-organized who hated gargoyles. The Quarrymen and Dracon's gang both fit that description… and in fact, I'll bet the newspapers are more appreciative tomorrow of the work we did tonight, shaking down all the gang hangouts. We destroyed a lot of drugs in the process, and a lot of guns that would otherwise have been used to kill and threaten innocent people." Broadway looked at a clock on the wall and continued, "The news trucks should be delivering the early editions to the newsstands soon; why don't you go out and get a paper, and see what they have to say? I bet they'll have changed their tune about us already."

Brooklyn doubted it, but he still took some loose change and went out, to sneak the early editions off a newsstand and leave money for them as soon as someone's back was turned. Then he brought the papers back to the castle, and read aloud one of the headlines: " 'Home Invasion Foiled, Gargoyles Hoax Revealed'… what the hell? What happened while we were busy tonight?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

**To be concluded…**


	10. Waning Moon

**10.10: Waning Moon**

_a series of 100-word epilogues_

_**December 23**__**rd**__**:**_

Fox finally woke up mid-morning, and stayed human after waking. She seemed weak, but fine… until David asked her if she remembered anything of the night before. Then she bolted for the bathroom, and spent long minutes heaving into the toilet before collapsing on the tiled floor.

Dr. Sato was summoned immediately and gave her a thorough examination, but found only exhaustion and mild dehydration. He recommended bed rest and Gatorade, and easily digestible foods when she became hungry.

David finally told Fox, "I'm just glad to have my family back." And he never asked her about that night again.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Oliver Grimm had not had time to read the morning papers before going in early to Kreuzung Technology, for a conference call with offices in Germany. Therefore it wasn't until he had lunch in his office, and had newspapers delivered with the meal, that he read about two people wearing gargoyle costumes that had been shot dead after breaking into a Quarryman's apartment.

The final paragraph of the article speculated that all the other Quarrymen home invasions, reported the day before, had been done by costumed humans instead of gargoyles. Grimm scowled; this was _**not**_ the outcome he'd been expecting!

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"Heinrich!" Father Sullivan greeted him at sunset. "I was concerned when you didn't return before dawn, but by the look on your face, you have good news at last!"

"I met other gargoyles last night, living in the high castle! I helped save their friends, and they asked me to come live with them!" Heinrich said happily. Then he frowned. "Brooklyn, their leader, said he knows you… why did you not tell me about them?"

"Because they were vacationing out of town! They must have just returned. And I wasn't sure about their customs, after that unpleasantness with the Labyrinth…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"So Malibu told you about a gargoyle he met in Central Park, someone who wanted to come down to the Labyrinth for shelter… and you turned him away, told Malibu that he couldn't be friends with him? You _**abandoned**_ a gargoyle; deliberately left him outside to be found by the Quarrymen?!?"

"It wasn't like that, Sis, I swear! I thought he was just Malibu's imaginary friend! I didn't know Malibu had sneaked up to Central Park by himself; I didn't know Heinrich was real! Honest!"

"Well, next time a gargoyle tells you about a new friend of his, _**believe him**_!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"We'll take tonight off from patrols, to get everyone settled in, and so we can go to the airport with the people returning south. I should have a new patrol roster ready tomorrow; I figure just two patrols a night, new folks going out with old-timers here, until you're all familiar with the territory. Then—yeah, Broadway?"

"Only two patrols? …So you're… taking me off patrol duties?"

Brooklyn lowered his eyes. "Yeah. I'm sorry, Broadway. Right now, your wing's just not up to it. Maybe with more physical therapy…"

Broadway's eyes were lowered too. "S'okay. I'd kind-of figured as much..."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Castaway gave the assembled Quarrymen the damage report: their warehouse, their remaining helicopter and every hovercycle destroyed, and most of their net-mortars and Quarryhammers destroyed as well. "With our reduced resources, we'll hunt them _by day only_ until more weapons and hovercycles are acquired," he declared, then sighed. "Well, we're lucky nobody was killed this time."

"Sir… I'm not so sure about 'lucky'," Stanford said. "Those gargoyles could have killed me and Copeland, but they didn't. Instead, they just stashed us away, out of the cold. As if they didn't really want to hurt anyone…"

He was fired, of course.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"You'll patrol again someday, darling," Martha said to a morose Broadway in the kitchen. "Your wing _has_ gotten better, and it'll get better still with more therapy!"

Broadway said glumly, "Maybe… but in the meantime, what am I good for?"

That earned him a thump on the head. She scolded him, "What am _**I**_ good for, Broadway?! I'm no warrior, but I can cook, and fish, and write; I've always known I'm good for something!"

Finally, he smiled. "Yeah… you're sure good for _me_," he said as he tugged her hairnet off, and ran his talons through her flowing locks.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

At nearly the same time, Isabel cornered Brooklyn in the library. "C'mon, let's say it and get it over with."

"Huh?"

"You say you feel like gravel, for telling your rookery brother he can't patrol anymore. Then I tell you that it was either that or watch him get _killed_ one night for not dodging fast enough, or get his patrol partner killed taking a bullet for him. Then you say you're glad you married someone who understands tough decisions."

"Izzy…" Brooklyn shook his head, then grinned. "You forgot one thing."

"What?"

"This," as he nuzzled her, and she purred.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"Good evening, detective," Xanatos said with an amused smile, eyeing the bouquet of roses in front of him. "A bouquet, for me?"

"No, these are for Anne. But I promised my captain that the first thing I'd do when I came up here, is personally give you this," Matt Bluestone said as he handed over the manila envelope he was holding in his other hand.

"What's inside?"

Matt grinned. "Tickets for the six different traffic violations you incurred when you landed the helicopter right in front of the precinct."

Xanatos chuckled and shook his head. "Let me find my checkbook…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"Matt!" Anne hobbled over to him on her crutches, despite his urging her to stay off her feet.

After giving Anne the flowers and Bethany her lemon cookies, Matt said, "Bethany, can I see your new smiley-face necklace? I want to give you a prettier chain for it."

"You're the second person to ask for that today; Xanatos borrowed it a few hours ago," Anne said as she helped Bethany take the necklace off.

Matt chuckled as he read the new words engraved on the back of the smiley-face; the same words he'd told Johansson were on there. "The man thinks of everything."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

As the New Orleans clan members boarded the aircraft, Brooklyn said, "Don't be strangers, okay? Come visit us when you can!"

"Considering Xanatos just _**gave**_ us this private jet, I think it's safe to say we'll be visiting you fairly often," Adam said, still looking bemusedly at the title papers. "That is, as soon as one of our human clan members acquires a pilot's license."

Lucy said, "And don't forget, you can come visit us again, too!"

"You won't want to miss a real Mardi Gras in the Big Easy!" as Etienne grinned.

Broadway grinned back, promising, "We'll be there!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"I put a new chain on Bethany's necklace, but Xanatos said that if you want the dog-tags chain back, you have to come up to the castle to get it," Matt said to Davis and Carter with a grin. "He and the clan want to thank you two personally, for helping keep Heinrich safe and well-provided for the last month."

"Don't worry about dressing up for the occasion; half the people there wear loincloths," Elisa told them.

"Take a three-hour lunch tonight; we'll cover for you." Matt finished with, "Welcome to the Conspiracy!"

Elisa added, "The _**good**_ conspiracy, that is…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Heinrich was pleasantly surprised to discover that even after Bethany had gone to bed, the adults in the clan were still happy to listen to more of his translations of the _Klein-Johannes_ stories he'd written for his nephew Gregor.

"It's been ages since we had a real storyteller in our clan… and now we have two!" Brooklyn told Xanatos with a smile. Just before Broadway shushed them, as Heinrich was still telling stories.

Xanatos listened a few minutes more, and decided that if he didn't already own a publishing company, he'd buy one next week; one that published children's books.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"A room of our own; ours to keep forever instead of just a few nights!" Lexington said delightedly, gesturing to the newly-furnished bedroom before them.

"With the understanding that we won't do more than hold hands with each other outside these walls," Robert reminded them.

"Well, we were expecting that already. And the mated _couples _are getting rooms of their own too, with the same agreement. Humans… Anyway, look at that nice big bed; what say we make use of it?"

Then Rebecca pointed upwards, frowning. "That thingie right next to the light… that's not a video camera, is it?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

_**December 24**__**th**__**:**_

Xanatos knocked on Owen's door, then let himself in. "Feeling better, Owen? There's soup ready if you're hungry now…"

"A full day and night's sleep has been most beneficial," Owen said, though his face was still lined with exhaustion. "And yes, soup would be welcome."

In short order Owen was eating soup from a tray Xanatos had brought himself. Xanatos said, "If you're feeling up to visitors now, the kids and Anne really want to see you. Fox, too, but she's still recovering in her own bed. And last night, the gargoyles kept pausing outside your door and listening in…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"In all, they hit eighteen of our bases in one night," Glasses told Tony Dracon glumly. "And since some onlookers called the cops about some of those raids, we've lost ten crates of guns and ammo and a shitload of drugs. Over half our drug stashes in town, and _everything_ that was ready for sale. Twenty-two men arrested, and six more in the hospital; shot by cops or torn up by gargoyles."

"That bounty for a gargoyle's head? Raise it to a full million," Dracon growled.

Glasses shook his head. "Boss, right now we couldn't afford to pay it."

"_**FUCK!**_"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

The police divers were grim as they lifted another plastic-wrapped body onto the dock. This one was much smaller than the others they'd already found in the river.

Four hours later, Xanatos received a call from the motor pool. Kyle Norton's voice was rough with unshed tears as he passed on the information the police had given him. "I'm going down to the morgue now to…identify the bodies, sir. I just wanted you to know, this explains what happened to the limos. The bastards must have been holding Nicky hostage; Frank would have done anything to save his little boy…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Finally feeling better, Fox walked into the nursery and held out her arms with a smile. "Alex, sweetie! Come to Mommy!" Alexander blurbled happily at her from where he was playing on the carpet, and began scooting in her direction until she went over and picked him up. "Don't feel like flying today, hmm?"

"Not once since the kidnapping," Anne told her, looking worried. "Neither has Bethany, and she hasn't made her dolls dance either. I can't even get them to play Magic-Catch!"

Fox closed her eyes, feeling horrible. "We shouldn't have asked them to try magic, in that cell…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

One detective at the 55th Precinct told another, "The report from Ballistics came back. The gun found at the scene fired the bullets that killed the mom and kids inside the apartment. And Forensics confirmed that the fingerprints on the gun match the fingerprints on the hand we found, though they don't match any that we have on file."

"Call Albany and ask them to find the ex-husband, if they can."

"You're thinking the hand's his? It was domestic?"

"Domestic with a 'vig' chaser. Call the 17th too, and tell 'em it looks like the Vigilante Critter's back… and _hungry_."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

The news from the motor pool and what must have happened to the Lewises, had filtered through the castle and clan. It cast a grim shadow on their joy and relief that the whole ordeal was over. "That poor man, and his poor boy," Anne said sadly as she reached for her crutches and began struggling to get up off the couch.

Broadway hustled over to help her up. "Yeah, Thailog really is a monster. But at least Xanatos said he'd pay for their funerals. Hey, let's change the subject; what do you traditionally serve for a Manhattan Christmas dinner?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

"…Sweet Dragon's Tears…"

"What'd you find, Lex?" Brooklyn asked his rookery brother, who was staring appalled at the computer screen.

"Remember when Owen told us Thailog knew about Puck, and wanted Puck as his magical servant for one year? Well, I just found out what Thailog wanted Puck to do for him during that year. This document he left on his computer is one helluva wish list."

Brooklyn read over his shoulder, and scowled. "That Thailog is one sick bastard. We'd better show this to Xanatos. …And to Elisa, too; she needs to be warned about… about _that_ wish. Ugghh."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Back at the 23rd Precinct, one cop asked another, "Hey, where's Johansson tonight?"

"He asked the captain for some personal time; for Christmas shopping, is what I heard."

"Shopping for presents on the night before Christmas, with all the other Last-Minute-Lunatics? I wouldn't go out there without full riot gear on! I thought Johansson had more sense than that."

"So did I, but he was grinning like a maniac when he left her office. Patterson said he'd heard Johansson tell Rivers that some rich uncle, or maybe a grandparent, had sent him a gift certificate for FAO Schwarz."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Heinrich was on the phone, having spent the last hour telling his family about all that had happened to him since the last letter they'd received. He said excitedly, "((And _Herr_ Xanatos has said that not only will he pay to fly everyone to New York--))"

"((Fly us there _how_?))" Helmut interrupted testily. "((Does he expect us to get tickets and passports?))"

"((He said Karl, Andrea and Dieter will have those but you, Helga and Gregor should fly during the day, as cargo in special crates. But Helmut, _Xanatos wants to publish my stories_! _I could be_ _**an author**_**!**))"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Thailog had suffered a minor setback, that was all. He hadn't been captured, and the injuries caused by the werewolf and his still-unknown attacker had already healed. He'd lost the use of that warehouse as a base of operations, but he could always kill and take over the bank accounts of enough people to buy and set up another.

Now the clan knew he was alive, and knew that _he_ knew of Owen's dual nature; he'd have to be even more subtle when planning his next operation. But he'd learned even more of their capabilities, and had some new ideas…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

**December 25th**

Just before dawn on Christmas morning, the doorbell for Vinnie and Leon's apartment rang. Grumbling, Vinnie opened the door, looked outside and gasped. "Holy… Leon, get out here quick!"

Piled in front of the doorway were four cases of imported beers, the brands that Heinrich had told them about after he'd spent the night at their place. And parked right behind the cases was a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, with a bright red bow tied across the saddle. And a tag hanging from the handlebars; Vinnie lifted it and read: "Merry Christmas! With belated apologies and many thanks from the Manhattan Clan."

THE END


End file.
